Thursday Night Football Shocker: The Fair Catch Free Kick Explained!

On this special edition of the Pigskin Dispatch podcast, we're going to talk about a rule that hasn't been experienced in many years that happened on Thursday night football on December 19th.

We got the story coming up in just a moment and what it really means and the rules coming up in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history on a day to day basis.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

So as we come out of the tunnel of the Sports History Network, let's take the field and go no huddle through the portal of positive gridiron history with pigskindispatch.com.

This podcast is part of the Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear of your favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com hello my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to a special edition.

Yes, we had something special happening on Thursday Night Football, the night that most teams are sort of the games are duds.

We found that there was something extremely, very interesting and a very good game between two teams that are trying to accomplish getting into the playoffs in the afc, the Denver Broncos and the Los Angeles chargers.

Now, most people are saying, what in the world is this?

And if you're watching it last night, you probably asked yourself that same question.

Well, this is a high school rule.

The National Football, High School Football Federation, NFHS and the NFL both have this rule.

Our friend Timothy P.

Brown wrote an article this morning on that on the fair catch free kick and its history back in the IFA rules back, you know, in the day.

But it is exactly what it says.

First of all, there has to be a fair catch.

And secondly, it is a free kick.

So let's define what a free kick is.

Most football fans have no idea what a free kick is.

A free kick starts every single game when they kick off at the beginning of each half or after a score that is a free kick.

Nobody is allowed to defend the kick.

There's nobody coming in to block the that kickoff, the opening kickoff or the kickoff after halftime or after a score.

It is a free kick is what it's classified as in the rules.

After a safety is a free kick.

So free kicks, you know, especially after safety we commonly see punters come out and punt the ball on a free kick.

So there is different ways to kick the free kick.

The most distance wise one is to kick it from a place kick on a tee now or with a holder.

Punting will give you hang time.

So that's why they're used after a safety.

But for scoring it has to be a place kick or a drop kick.

For score of punting has been a long standing 140 year rule of not being able to score from a punt, drop kick, place kick.

So now that we got that out of the way, a fair catch is has to be an awarded fair catch because there's also an illegal fair catch.

So awarded fair catch is during a punt or a kickoff, any kind of kick, the ball is kicked and the receiver can wave one arm up in the air back and forth and catch the ball and not be hit.

And the ball becomes dead right at the spot he gained possession.

Fair catch.

So last night in that Broncos and Chargers game we had, the Broncos had a fourth down with about less than 20 seconds left from and they punted from their own 16 yard line and kicked the ball and it ended up being fair caught by the Chargers somewhere around their 35 yard line.

Well, there was fair catch interference by the Broncos on the play.

15 yard penalty.

No time comes off the clock.

So now it goes from the 35ish to midfieldish area.

Not much time left on the clock.

The team that caught the fair catch can that was awarded that fair catch has the option of a free kick.

So it is a kick for point from a tee and nobody's allowed to defend it.

So that is what happened when the Chargers Cameron Dicker ended up booting that 60 some yard FIAs free kick field goal to end the half and gave three points to the Chargers for basically nothing.

And everybody sat astonished like how could that happen?

Is this Canadian rules?

Is this the UFL?

No, this is football.

So that is it, the fair catch free kick.

And hope that explains a little bit.

Just like we like to share football history with you each time we have the opportunity to.

And like I said, Timothy B.

Brown of FootballArchaeology.com has a really good article on the history of the Fair Catch Free Kick that has some different posts on it that he's posted over the years.

I think you'll enjoy that as well.

Footballarchaeology.com so till next time, everybody have a great gridiron day.

Peeking up at the clock, the time's running down.

We're going to go into victory formation, take a knee and let this baby run out.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you back tomorrow.

For the next podcast.

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This podcast is part of Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear of your favorite sport.

You can learn more at sportshistorynetwork.

Com.