Avid football fan Leon Rice has always been known to have a crazy idea or two.
He revealed another one a few weeks ago while meeting with the media ahead of the first basketball practice of the season.
While doing his interview outside the Broncos’ practice facility, he noticed kicker Jonah Dalmas from the football team walking by after class.
He called Dalmas over to the group of assembled media and explained his idea on how to kick longer field goals.
“You can kick the ball like 100 yards on a kick off,” Rice said to Dalmas. “So why don’t we move the holder back about 20 yards, snap it to him, you get a run at it and you could kick like an 80 yarder? Why don’t they do that?”
A perplexed Dalmas chuckled and said, “I don’t know.”
I thought more about the craziness of the idea but was curious if it might work. First I needed to know if it was legal.
Boise State basketball coach Leon Rice. (Photo by Loren Orr Photography LLC/LorrenOrr.com)
Can the holder be further back than seven yards? Can the kicker be further away from the ball when its snapped? Can the kicker run in motion to get a running start?
I called Mountain West coordinator of officials Mike DeFee to find out. I explained the crazy possibility – and that it came from Boise State’s basketball coach – and asked if it would legal to do – to get a running start on a field goal attempt to try and kick it further.
After Defee stopped laughing at the absurdity of my explanation, he went into a detailed explanation.
First of all, yes, it’s legal.
“He’s never going to get the ball off, but yes, he could,” Defee said with a chuckle. “You certainly could.”
First, the holder has to be at least seven yards back but can be further away if wanted. Also, the kicker is allowed to be in motion to pick up speed and momentum assuming he’s not moving forward.
“You can have one man in motion as long as he’s not in motion at the line of scrimmage or moving towards the line of scrimmage,” Defee said. “As long as they aren’t moving towards the ball before the snap, it would be legal.”
So yes, it would be possible for the kicker to be in motion laterally to pick up speed, then turn and approach the ball after the snap and kick it similar to what is done on a kick off. An average kick off goes 65-75 yards, where as most long field goals cap out in the 55-60 range.
But would it actually work? And why hasn’t anybody else already tried it?
I reminded Dalmas of the exchange with Rice and explained to him further what he meant. I also told him Defee said everything about the play was technically fine to do.
“That’s all legal?” Dalmas said with a chuckle. “Geez.”
Would it work?
“Not sure,” Dalmas said. “I’ve never tried it before. I have no clue. I really don’t, because I didn’t even know it was legal so I don’t know if people really think about it all that much.”
Well at least one person did: Rice.
“Let’s innovate the game,” Rice said during his explanation.
Leon Rice has a crazy idea for a kicker to be in motion and kick from further behind the line of scrimmage to allow for longer field goals like on a kickoff.
Jonah Dalmas was randomly walking by on campus today during our interview, so he asked him. pic.twitter.com/8enw7GxoXw
— B.J. Rains (@BJRains) September 26, 2023
Dalmas agreed that the basis of the idea is a valid one – you can kick it longer on a kick off than a field goal because of the running start. But it’s also harder to be as accurate.
“I would say you have a little less accuracy on kickoffs because your running past the ball and if you hit it wrong it could be off,” Dalmas said.
Defee also brought this point up as one reason why the idea is unlikely to ever pick up steam.
“Here’s where the problem comes in,” Defee told me. “It’s kind of like the goofy movie with Adam Sandler where he runs up to the golf ball and hits it much further. The reason nobody does that is you can’t be accurate. Same thing with a field goal kicker. There’s no way he can approach the ball with that kind of speed and to try and plant his leg and hit the ball with any accuracy.”
Another reason? Both Dalmas and special teams coach Demario Warren said moving the holder back (which allows the kicker more time to run up to the ball) opens up the potential for the kick to be blocked easier. The outside edge rushers would have a more direct line to the ball if the holder were further back.
“My biggest concern would be those guys having a great angle because we’re not going be able to block it unless we spread them out or something,” Warren said. “One of the issues is going to be the angle of the block, because right now you are kind of tucked in there so you create like a bow where they can’t get to the kicker. The deeper you get, the more formation you’d have to change to make sure they have depth to it to tru and not get it blocked.
“They’d have a greater angle, so you’d have to make it almost like a punt formation where you kick the guys out. But you can only have four guys off the line of scrimmage so you have to be within all those rules.”
Warren said some NFL kickers already move back a bit further on longer kicks. He thought putting the kicker in motion would be the biggest challenge of the scenario because of the typical routines kickers have on both field goals and kick offs.
“You want him to be in a rhythm,” Warren said. “They have certain steps, even on kick offs, and it’s not like ‘I’m going to run into this and hit it like Happy Gilmore.’”
Another Happy Gilmore reference. Which I hadn’t thought about but I guess would basically be what the kicker would be doing.
Warren said a typical kicker has 1.3 seconds to get off the kick before the edge rushers can block it. You’d need a little more time if the kicker was coming with a running start.
Instead of putting the kicker in motion, Warren thought the best chance of the scenario working would be just to have the kicker further back and run towards the ball after it was kicked – like on a kick off.
“I think you could do it, but just not in motion and more like a kick off where he’s deeper and gets a little more run into it,” Warren said. “You’d just have to change your protection a little bit.”
Dalmas, who also brought up the possibility of a block, noted another challenge. You aren’t allowed to use a kicking tee on field goals, which makes a running kick potentially more dangerous.
“You’re kicking off the ground so if you accidentally hit the ground before the ball, you’re in trouble with that much speed,” Dalmas said. “That’s what is nice about the tee. It’s not as big of a deal if you miss it a bit and hit the tee.”
Dalmas said he doesn’t plan to try it in practice- especially during the season – to avoid any potential injury. But he[s curious if it would actually work.
“It would be interesting to know for sure,” Dalmas said.
The idea, while legal, appears far-fetched. But if you needed a 70 yard field goal to win the game, wouldn’t it have a chance similar to a Hail Mary or trick play of working?
“It might,” Warren conceded.
Once I found out the play was legal, I told Rice his crazy scenario could actually happen. He laughed for several seconds.
“Oh that’s awesome,” Rice said.
We’ll probably never see it, and I mostly just wasted three people’s time by asking. But I found it interesting.
And at least one other person did, too.
“Heck yeah, I think it’s a great idea,” Warren said with a smile. “I might need to look into it a little bit more.”
