The Los Angeles Chargers scored on one of many rarest performs in skilled soccer on Thursday evening, when kicker Cameron Dicker efficiently transformed a fair-catch free kick simply earlier than halftime.
It’s the first profitable fair-catch free kick within the NFL since 1976 when Ray Wersching of the San Diego Chargers transformed a 45-yard kick towards the Buffalo Payments.
Here’s a have a look at Dicker’s 57-yard kick on Thursday.
The rule states that after a participant has efficiently made truthful catch — or has been awarded a good catch as the results of a penalty — their crew can try a kick from the spot of the catch, the place the opposing crew can’t rush it.
There are actually solely two conditions the place such a play is likely to be sensible for a crew: on the finish of a half when there isn’t any time remaining — as was the case right here — or on the finish of a recreation the place a kick may win it.
The Chargers had been able to strive the kick on Thursday as a result of Denver’s Tremon Smith interfered with Darius Davis’ truthful catch on a punt to finish the half.
That gave the Chargers an untimed down, which they used to aim the free kick. It was profitable, and introduced the Chargers to inside 21-13 on the scoreboard.
It’s only the seventh successful free kick in NFL history — and the primary since 1976.
Previous to Dicker’s kick, there had solely been 9 tried since that profitable kick in 1976. All of them missed, with all of them being on kicks of 58 yards or extra. Eight of them had been kicks of 60 yards or extra.
Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh deserves credit score for letting his kicker strive it, and he additionally deserves credit score for having his crew able to even have that likelihood. With time operating down within the half, he referred to as a timeout following a Denver failed third-down play deep in its personal territory with just a few seconds remaining. It will have been straightforward to only go into the half and let the clock run out figuring factors can be almost unimaginable to come back by. However typically loopy issues can occur within the NFL should you simply give it an opportunity. That is a kind of loopy performs.