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Onside kick versus 4th and 15


AngusMcFife

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10 hours ago, lancerman said:

It’s pretty simple. 

It is the most complicated game on the planet. Unless Startrek 4d chess is a thing now. Coaches don't even understand all the rules.

 

Edit: or the refs for that matter...

Edited by Vorsutus
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20 hours ago, BleedTheClock said:

Am I the only person that feels like nobody is going to try this outside of pure desperation? I feel like it will literally never happen if a team is ahead or outside of the 4th quarter. 
 

If you’re the favorited team, you trust that you’ll beat the opponent without having to risk something like that. No point in giving a bad team life by trying something with such a small chance of success. 
 

If you’re the underdog team, you’ll be happy you scored. If a team that wasn’t very good to begin with tried this and failed, it’s the kind of thing that gets coaches fired.

 

Also, are people really understanding how hard it is to convert a 4th & 15?

It is pretty hard to convert a 4th and 15, but two things come into play here. 

1.) It is easier to convert than an outside kick 

2.) If you draw an arbitrary line in the sand for something, which 4th and 15 is, you will have some very talented NFL minds devising plays to try and get that yardage,  The success rate would still be low, but it would go up over what we see currently for 4th and 15.  

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14 hours ago, Jakuvious said:

I think it was 6% last year prior to Younghoe Koo's two in one game. But it's been about 10% since they changed the kickoff rules in 2018. It was 16% prior to that, so that's the number they're trying to get it back to. The actual motivation behind the change is that kickoff rule changes about a running start and overloading a single side have lowered the success rate to borderline irrelevance. They want it back to that 16% area.

The one thing that could be iffy percentage wise, though, is not all 3rd and 15 attempts are real attempts. I don't know how often teams pull crap like draws or screens on 3rd and 15, but I guarantee you wouldn't see it as this new onside attempt. So they may need to make it further out if success rate winds up too high.

Nice, thanks for finding the numbers.  I thought it was something similar to that.  

A rule like this that puts the line at 4th and 15 means that coaches will be designing plays specifically for this situation, and will likely need to design more than a few like they do for gadget plays.  The heightened emphasis on it could lead to more conversions.  

Also, we always see at the end of the year teams unloading their box of gimmicks (trick plays) so I would hate to be a team fighting for a playoff spot in Week 17 and run the risk of losing because a team with nothing to play for just emptied their playbook and successfully converted one or maybe even two of these. 

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13 hours ago, whitehops said:

i like the idea, my only concerns are regarding penalties. as many people have probably stated, a DPI gifting the opposing team a free possession is unbalanced. 

 

maybe penalties should be treated like they are in 2 point conversions? that way the first down marker is essentially treated like the end zone with all defensive penalties being half the distance to go, and offensive penalties mean a re-do but doesn't give the offense an opportunity to opt out of the conversion. would DPI still be a spot foul in this case? dunno...

if  a team converts then they get the ball at the 15 yards, they can't score a TD. if a defense gets a pick 6 then they get 2 points like they would in a PAT or 2-point conversion attempt.

 

Good post and observation about DPI.  That absolutely needs to be qualified, and I think treating it like a 2 point conversion would be good.  Otherwise, I see two things happening- chucking it up hoping for the DPI, or players covering so scared that they are actually allowing more conversions than normal. 

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5 hours ago, naptownskinsfan said:

2.) If you draw an arbitrary line in the sand for something, which 4th and 15 is, you will have some very talented NFL minds devising plays to try and get that yardage,  The success rate would still be low, but it would go up over what we see currently for 4th and 15.  

Defensive guys get paid to come up with ways of devising plays to stop those plays too ha

both sides would be equally newly motivated

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13 minutes ago, incognito_man said:

Defensive guys get paid to come up with ways of devising plays to stop those plays too ha

both sides would be equally newly motivated

That's true, but with rules currently favoring offenses, as well as the fact that DPI could play a factor in this, I would be leaning to the offenses at least being able to raise the chances of converting this versus an onside kick substantially more than defenses being able to hold the percentage where it is.  

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1 minute ago, naptownskinsfan said:

That's true, but with rules currently favoring offenses, as well as the fact that DPI could play a factor in this, I would be leaning to the offenses at least being able to raise the chances of converting this versus an onside kick substantially more than defenses being able to hold the percentage where it is.  

I think those are two different arguments:

(1) comparing chances of 4th and 15 vs onside (the former is higher)

(2) increasing the odds of converting 4th and 15 from current percentage

I agree that (1) is significantly higher. I don't think that (2) will change significantly. BUT, if it does - it's an easy fix by making it 4th and 16 (and so on).

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33 minutes ago, incognito_man said:

Defensive guys get paid to come up with ways of devising plays to stop those plays too ha

both sides would be equally newly motivated

Well let’s dissect this then. Presumably this happens near the end of a game. The defense just gave up a score. So you now tell them to go out there again after they just endured a drive and try to stop a 4th in 15 after their last play was a score. Especially when it’s going to effect the secondary most because they’ve been running trying to keep pace with receivers all day. 
 

There’s so much wrong with this the deeper you go into it. 

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31 minutes ago, lancerman said:

Well let’s dissect this then. Presumably this happens near the end of a game. The defense just gave up a score. So you now tell them to go out there again after they just endured a drive and try to stop a 4th in 15 after their last play was a score. Especially when it’s going to effect the secondary most because they’ve been running trying to keep pace with receivers all day. 
 

There’s so much wrong with this the deeper you go into it. 

So make it 4th and 16 if you're not comfortable with the odds. Easy to adjust incrementally until you hit the same success rate as onside kick (or whatever the "best" success rate is people want).

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Just now, incognito_man said:

So make it 4th and 16 if you're not comfortable with the odds. Easy to adjust incrementally until you hit the same success rate as onside kick (or whatever the "best" success rate is people want).

My issue is putting a team back on offense. That doesn’t fix it. And if you are just young to make it harder, just do the onside kick

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