I was listening to sports radio in my car, and the topic came around to NFL kickers. Mark Mosely’s (sp?) name came up–I believe he was a Washington Redskin of the 80’s–as the last “straight on” kicker, as opposed to “soccer style,” the kickers who approach the ball from an angle. The host of the show mentioned that kicking straight-on was no longer allowed in the NFL. I found that rather strange, and I didn’t buy it. As long as the kicker is kicking the ball from a hold, why would a way of kicking it that was perfectly fine for decades suddenly be made illegal? That’s like telling a quarterback he can’t hold the ball with a certain grip…
Is this really a rule, or, as I suspect, is this announcer mistaken?
I’m fairly certain that the death of the straight-on kicker was the banning of square-toed shoes. With round-toed shoes, soccer-style is much more accurate, so they started winning the kicking jobs.
I don’t believe that straight-on kicking was banned, only the accessory that made straight-on kicking better.
Sounds good; maybe it was the square shoe that was outlawed after all, not the kicking style. I do still see high school players (and some small-time college players) kick straight on, but these are usually only from 30 yards or less.
I agree with glee, for what it’s worth. I can get a lot more accuracy with a soccer ball by kicking soccer style, basically because I can control how the ball spins. On the other hand, I can get more distance with my toe, provided that I’m willing to accept that the ball might do some weird stuff in flight. The situation may be different with a football, given the different shape.
But punting is a lot different from place kicking. An American football punter will use a much different technique than an Everywhere else football punter (aka the goalie) because the latter doesn’t have to worry about someone running up to block his kick.
Yes, I was referring to place kicking (I don’t play goalie because I absolutely suck at it). But I do take your point about not having to worry about 6’6" behemoths with monster wingspans trying to block your kick; that presumably has an effect on how far you can drive the ball given that you’d have to take a steeper angle.
How different that is between using the toe and using the instep is not something that I could even begin to address.
I longest field goal record in the NFL is still held by Tom Dempsey, at 63 yards. He has only half a foot on his kicking foot, and he had a special shoe that was very flat in front. Later the NFL eliminated the special shoe. I don’t know if it was related to his success.
That radio host was full of hooey, which is par for sports-talk radio. Straight-on kicking is and always has been perfectly legal. The only rules pertaining to kicking shoes are that “Kicking shoes must not be modified” (from what?) and that you can’t use a detachable kicking toe. Also, the “Tom Dempsey rule” states that “any shoe that is worn by a player with an artificial limb on his kicking leg must have a kicking surface that conforms to that of a normal kicking shoe.”
Speaking of the drop-kick, I was going to post a question on this too, but I might as well ask here. When was the last time this was employed in the NFL? I’m sure it’s been a while. I recall reading in Sports Illustrated a couple of years back about a high school (or possibly a Division III college) that used it quite often and effectively.
I know it’s a bit too risky for the mostly conservative NFL, but it seems it would be a great weapon. It’s not that difficult, but since kicking has become so specialized, I doubt we’ll ever see it again.
The last NFL player to use a drop kick was former Atlanta Falcons kicker Mick Luckhurst (active 1981-1987). He attempted a few drop-kick field goals during preseason exhibition matches more than once in his career.
BTW, British American football fans may know of Luckhurst, as he’s done quite a bit of commentary for British broadcasts of NFL games. Don’t know if he still does.
Well darn it. I think it’s rule 5-3-g on this page, but the darned place went AWOL while I was looking into the fair-catch free kick gooney bird that BobT once brought up. Here’s what I copied:
Rule 5-4 also prohibits protruding metal, including from shoes, and detatchable kicking toes, which further de-Dempseys things. If a player is nailed with an inappropriate kicking shoe in a game, that player must sit out one play, which essentially screws up the kicking attempt unless the team has a backup kicker.
Did straight-on kickers other than Dempsey rely on an exposed metal toe or some sort of add-on that would flatten the kicking surface? If they did, the above rules might have ended that practice and ended whatever advantage that type of kicking had.
The last dropkick “specialist” in the NFL was Earl Clark. He retired in 1938.
I noticed that the dropkick may also be used on kickoffs, and it occured to me that such a thing may be useful when attempting an onside kick. I’ve never heard of such a thing being tried.
I wouldn’t recommend a dropkick with a modern football. They’re too pointy and you won’t get a good bounce.
It’s easier to put the ball on a tee and then a skilled kicker can make it do all sorts of things for an onside kick.
From my memory, all that straight-on kickers had were just one shoe that had a flat end on it. Of course, Tom Dempsey had a specially modified shoe because he was missing part of his kicking foot.
Kicking straight-on is really hard IMO. You have to be perfectly squared up to the ball or else you send your kick careening off to the side. Soccer style kicking seems more natural to me, which is probably why it caught on.
Soccer style kicking was just frowned upon because it was something done by “foreigners” and not by good, old-fashioned, red-blooded Americans.
Why back in my day, kickers were real players like Lou Groza and George Blanda. They kicked straight on and we liked it that way.
Then them crazy Gogolak brothers showed up and ruined everything. Why? Because they started making field goals with incredible regularity. And that Stenerud fellow? Can’t trust them Norwegians!
Seriously, despite all that the NFL and the NCAA do to discourage field goals, i.e. changing the rules to where the ball is placed if you miss, narrowing the goal posts, eliminating tees, only allowing brand new balls to be kicked, kickers keep getting better and better.
I see high school kids kick 50-yard field goals now (they still get to use a tee) and it’s just not that shocking. And I saw Oregon’s kicker nail a 59-yarder against UCLA.