On October 6, 2003, on Monday Night Football, Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt lined up to try a 40-yard field goal in overtime against the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay.
The kick was no good; however, Bucs defensive end Simeon Rice was called for a "leverage foul" — that is, he climbed on a teammate's back in an effort to block the kick.
Since the original line of scrimmage had been the Tampa Bay 22, the ball was moved half the distance to the goal — and this time Vanderjagt was successful, from 29 yards out, giving Indianapolis a 38-35 victory.
Two days ago, the same thing happened again — with the Colts benefitting again: Indianapolis kicker Spencer Shrader was sent out to attempt a 60-yarder on the last play of the game against Denver. He missed — but Broncos defensive end Eyioma Uwazurike was flagged for "leverage," and Shrader got to try again from 45 yards, and made it — and the Colts emerged with a 29-28 win.
But aren't field goals far too makeable these days?
In 1977 — the "last good year" in NFL history (the infamous "chuck rule" took effect the following year) — NFL kickers as a whole made 58.3% of their attempts, the longest being 54 yards by Washington's Mark Moseley, who was reputed to have kicked with the aid of a steel toe in his shoe.
But last year, kickers were good on a whopping 84% of their field goal tries, with Brandon Aubrey of "America's Team" nailing one from 65 yards.
It was once legal in the NFL for the defense to station a player in front of the goal post to try and block a field goal: On December 8, 1962, wide receiver R.C. Owens of the then-Baltimore Colts did block a field goal in this manner in a game against the then-Washington Redskins. Then (!), in 1969, Hank Stram drafted a 6-foot-10-inch basketball center, Morris Stroud, of Clark Atlanta University, an HBCU, in the third round of the 1969 draft (the draft was unified in 1967 even though interconference play did not commence until three years later). He was often placed at the goal post, but never actually blocked a field goal, as this became illegal with the merger of the NFL and AFL in 1970, the penalty being the automatic awarding of three points to the kicking team for a "palpably unfair act."
In his five-year career, Stroud averaged over 20 yards per catch three times (he ran a 4.57 in the 40, which would be considered above average speed for a tight end even in today's NFL). His longest reception went for 54 yards.
The bickering over this and other issues resulted in Stram and Miami's Don Shula becoming bitter enemies — so much so that when Stram worked play-by-play with Jack Buck for 18 years on CBS Radio's broadcasts of MNF games starting in 1978 (Stram had been fired after having gone 7-21 in two seasons as head coach of the Saints), he often expressed obvious bias against the Dolphins in comments he made on the air.
Maybe now is the time to make this legal again — and also eliminate the "leverage foul."
Even with the existence of the "ghost runner," a baseball team can't score a run by getting a runner to second base.
If anything, it's the obscenely high success rate of kickers that is a palpably unfair act.
Leave a Comment