You don’t see that every day — in fact, you haven’t seen it in 48 years.
The Los Angeles Chargers converted the first successful fair-catch, free-kick field goal since 1976 on Thursday on the final play of the first half against the Denver Broncos.
With eight seconds left in the second quarter, Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh called timeout after an unsuccessful third-down attempt by the Broncos, forcing Denver to punt.
As Chargers returner Derius Davis waved for a fair catch at his own 38-yard line — while the first-half clock simultaneously expired — he was interfered with by a Broncos gunner.
The ensuing penalty gave Los Angeles the ball at Denver’s 47-yard line. And even though time had expired, the penalty meant the Chargers could run one untimed play.
Now, here’s where the weirdness kicked in.
There is a seldom-used clause in the NFL’s rulebook that allows teams the option “to put the ball in play by a snap or by a fair catch kick (field goal attempt)” following a fair catch.
Overwhelmingly, teams choose to snap the ball and run a first-down play. It makes sense — there are few instances in which settling for an immediate field goal is the optimal decision. And that’s if you’re even in field-goal range to begin with.
Only five NFL teams had previously tried the kick in the 21st century, and nobody had successfully executed it since Ray Wersching did it for the San Diego Chargers 48 years ago. Wersching, who kicked for the Chargers and 49ers during 15 NFL seasons, made a 45-yard fair-catch kick at the halftime gun for San Diego on Nov. 21, 1976.
But on Thursday, all the pieces aligned for the rare fair-catch, free-kick to come to fruition once again.
The penalty meant the Chargers could only run one untimed play, so downs were irrelevant. They were well within kicker Cameron Dicker’s range on the 57-yard attempt.
And so Harbaugh, after a timeout and much deliberation and explanation, sent out his field-goal unit.
And Dicker nailed the kick.
And the rest was history.
— With files from the associated press
