Well, so much for the idea of surprising the opposition with an onside kick when NFL teams are in their desperate moments. Instead, all onside kicks now have to be announced first.
Previously, teams could sneak in an onside kick at the last second. It still normally didn't work — but hey, it was worth a shot to try to shock the opposition.
Well, forget about all that, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
"All onside kicks will be announced in advance, since the onside kick will entail an entirely different formation. Also, onside kicks can't happen until the fourth quarter," Florio wrote. "And only the team that is trailing can perform them.
"While the pre-2024 efforts to minimize the kickoff had made it harder for onside kicks to be recovered, the possibility of a surprise onside kick lingered. Now, it won't. It can't happen, ever."
A lot of people probably didn't realize that only the trailing team can perform an onside kick — or that onside kicks can only take place in the game's final 15 minutes.
"It's one of the only rule changes that restrict the options that teams previously had," Florio wrote. "Twice in the last 30 years (Cowboys-Steelers and Saints-Colts), successful surprise onside kicks happened in the Super Bowl.
"Still, the league believes it's a fair trade. More kickoff returns in exchange for no possibility ever and under any circumstances of a surprise onside kick."
Let's face it, teams hope to never use an onside kick. It only means that you are losing. But if they did have to use it, they would sometimes want to use the element of surprise. Why the NFL took away that idea, we likely will never know.
