On Thursday night we got to see a rule that we haven’t seen in a long time. We got to see the Chargers go for a fair catch free kick field goal. A fair catch free kick is when a player makes a fair catch and the team opts to kick a field goal instead of run a play.
It’s not something you would see unless it’s a situation like the Chargers’, where time had run out, and they got a fair catch and a penalty on the fair catch. It moved them up far enough that they attempted a field goal.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell was asked about it on Friday, and he didn’t say yes or no to whether the Lions would try it, but he did say he felt comfortable with Jake Bates attempting it in minus territory. I wouldn’t look for it any time soon, though. The scenario has to really work out for it.
However, Campbell did flat-out say that the Lions would never go for a drop kick though and Jared Goff has to love that.
A drop kick is not the type you might see in the WWE. The NFL’s version of a drop kick is when the quarterback drops the ball and then kicks it through the uprights. It almost looks like a punt. It counts as a field goal, or it can be done as an extra point, too.
The last time we saw it happen in the NFL was all the way back in 2006 when Doug Flutie did it for the Patriots. Before that, the last time it happened was in 1941. Drew Brees did it for an extra point in the 2012 Pro Bowl, but we’re not counting that.