Does “icing the kicker” actually work? In other words, do kickers who have been “iced” have a statistically worst record of making filed goals?
A couple of statisticians studied exactly this question, and the answer appears to be (somewhat surprisingly) a cautious “yes.”
http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_11_15_04.html
Forgot to add - the difference is barely (if at all) statistically significant. They only had two seasons of data.
In fact, while looking into this more, I found another article which reviewed the data using the same methods as Berry and Wood, and found that it didn’t help:
Another football question: What’s the deal when someone kicks the ball and a bunch of guys gather around it to watch it stop moving?
Usually happens when the ball is not caught by the receiving team and the ball is rolling towards their end zone. The kicking team’s members are waiting for it to roll to a complete stop, to get the most yardage out of the rolling ball, even if it’s just a few inches. That’s a few inches more that the receiving team must go to score!
Is no one allowed to touch it?
If a punted ball is touched by a member of the kicking team before a member of the receiving team touches it, it is dead at that point. Also, if it bounces into the end zone, the receiving team gets it on the 20 yard line. Hence, the kicking team wants to get under the kick and touch the ball just before it bounces into end zone. Sometimes they manage to surround the ball without touching it. They are watching it roll towards the end zone, prepared to touch it before it crosses the line, or if it takes a bounce back upfield.
If a defender touches it then the ball is down there. An offensive player is free to pick it up and run with it, which is the reason all the defenders surround it.
They’re allowed to, but they don’t really want to in case it rolls closer to the receiving team’s end zone. Once the ball stops, the surrounding kicking team is pretty sure that they’re not gonna get any more yardage out of it, therefore, safe to touch. The Receiving team will get the ball on the yard line where the ball was touched.
What if there’s a freak updraft/tailwind and the ball goes between the goal posts on kick-off?
Also, what happens if a member of the receiving team runs up and touches the ball while the kicking team is surrounding it?
I see the latter question has been answered. But in the Chargers game it didn’t look as if the receiving team made an attempt to reach it once it was surrounded.
It’s a touch back. College kickers used to do this all the time before they moved the kickoffs back this year.
It becomes a live ball. The member of the receiving team will likely get knocked on his ass immediately, and then yelled at by his coach.
To clarify, the reason they’d get yelled at is that as soon as it becomes a live ball, the kicking team can recover the ball and continue on offense. The punt can become a 40-yard offensive play.
Even tho it was a missed field goal, former Cowboy defensive lineman Leon Lett was infamous (c. early 90’s) for touching the rolling ball past the line of scrimmage when it was surrounded by a bunch of defensive players.
Nitpick:
Simply touching the ball does not kill it, possession is required to kill the ball. But touching the ball as the kicking team gives the receiving team the opportunity to take the ball at the spot it was touched. If the kicking team simply touches the ball, the receiver may pick up the ball and attempt to advance, and take either the result of the play, or take the ball at the spot of illegal touching.*
- Certain restrictions apply. If a penalty is enforced on the play, the privilege of taking the ball at the illegal touching spot is canceled. This creates a hole in the NCAA rules - if the kicking team touches the punt, then the receiving team picks it up, fumbles, the kicking team recovers, advances, the receiving team commits a 5-yard facemask foul, the kicking team continues advancing and scores, the foul is declined because of the TD, but the receiving team can elect to take the ball at the spot of illegal touching and wipe out not only the TD but the turnover as well. If the kicking team player is tackled on the 1, the kicking team can choose to enforce the foul, which voids the illegal touching, and the kicking team gets the ball on the 1. I’m not sure if this hole exists in the NFL rules, but my cursory reading of the rulebook indicates that it might.
To clarify, for those who don’t know the rule:
On a punt, the kicking team is penalized for touching the ball before the receiving team does. The penalty for this infraction is that the receiving team gets the ball at the spot of the illegal touch. Thus, the illegal touch establishes the minimum field position for the receiving team; if they manage to pick the ball up before it is actually downed, they can advance it from there.
How about when a kick is blocked?
If it goes backwards (reflected toward the kicker), it is a live ball, and the offense can try to re-convert the 4th down.
If it goes forward (glanced off the defender, but continues in the direction), is it then a dead ball? Can the offense recover it?
I’ve always been foggy about this.
If the offense recovers a blocked kick behind the line of scrimmage, it may advance the ball. If it’s fourth down, they need to make a first down to retain possession.
Once a blocked kick crosses the line of scrimmage, it’s just like any other kick–a first touching by the kicking team is an illegal touch, which entitles the receiving team to take possession at the spot of the touch.
The offense can recover and advance any kick that does not cross the line of scrimmage. Kicks that are blocked within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage are deemed to not advanced if they subsequently touch the ground behind the line of scrimmage. Once a ball hits the ground or a player not blocking it or an official beyond the line of scrimmage, it is considered beyond the line of scrimmage.
If a kick is blocked and then continues downfield, it works like any other kick. The defense may pick it up, and the offense may “kill” it in the usual fashion. If it is a field goal attempt, the defense may decline to recover it and take the next snap from the spot of the kick (NFL), previous spot (NCAA) or 20-yard line if appropriate. The block does not count as touching by the defense that makes the ball “live”