Completely serious. Okay, I know it would never happen, but I was reading an online article about a high school coach from Arkansas, I think, who completely defies all conventional wisdom and onside kicks every kickoff and does not punt. (and won a state championship this way). He fully believes logically and mathematically that what he's doing is giving his team the best chance to win. Here's the article: http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=892888

The punting thing seems a little out there to me (though I'm not saying he's wrong), but what about the onside kick thing? I seriously wonder how that would work out for a team like ours. Let's go back to the playoff game. If we onside kick every kickoff the entire game, do we win that game? I think we do. Statistically, onside kicks are successful 26% of the time in the NFL. Assuming a starting position of your 42 yard line for your failed onside kick and their 28 for a conventional kickoff, and the price to pay to roll the dice is 30 yards of field position. But what good is field position if they can easily go 42 or 72 yards on you? It really makes no difference. (GB/Arizona playoff game)...2 successful onside kicks in that game probably wins us the game. Maybe the first surprise one, then one after that. (60% of surprise onside kicks are successful, but only 20% of non-surprise, averages out to 26%).

So is it worth it? Depends...only a team with a very particular situation (an explosive offense, which we have, and a vulnerable defense). It would probably only work best against particular teams which have offenses, but it'd be an interesting halftime adjustment to see a head coach come out and say, "Look, we're not stopping them anyway, but they're not stopping us. So we're going to just try to get the ball back to our offense as much as possible and give us more possessions than them."

I don't think it'll be us, but I don't think we're that far away in the NFL from seeing a creative thinking young coach try this out in some regard if he has the right ingredients on his team. Which would probably eventually lead to rule adjustment from the NFL, like extending the minimum onside kick out to 15 or 20 yards.

Might as well since our coverage units suck.

Seriously, this isnt high school. Horrible idea.

I think the field positioning would take a huge toll.

Worst....................Idea...................Ever

Yes, terrible idea. Also, onside kicks worked 26 pct of the time last year. They were in the teens most years before that, and 10-11 pct just 6-7 years ago with "expected" onside kicks.

And obviously if you kick onside every single play, you're going to have more "expected" onside kicks.


Now, the punting isn't a bad idea. There are some sorta saber guys in football who say you never punt in the other teams territory if it's 4th and less than 4, and you only punt on 4th and 1 if you're inside your own 35 as the pct of gaining that yard outweigh the negatives of turning it over on downs every once in a while. I'd argue with Jermichael Finley and Quarless in a 2 TE set, Grant and Quinn Johnson in the backfield together and then Greg Jennings split to the short side of the field, you could run a kick to the wide side, OR a play action where you've got the play side TE, Quarless leak out, the FB sit down 4-5 yards behind the center, the RB provide protection for the QB, Finley coming across the field short and Jennings running across deeper, think 6 and 15 yards. So you've got Quarless(in this scenario) running that little angle route, Johnson or Kuhn sitting down in the middle of the field after the play fake, Finley coming across full speed(best option) and then Arod could always just tuck it and get the yard.

THAT would be tough to stop and I would guess we'd get 8 of 10 of those. 8 more possessions with our offense is MORE than worth the 2 failed ones.

My head hurts from the sheer retardedness of this thread.

My head hurts from the sheer retardedness of this thread.

you again? get out of here.

McClunger wrote:My head hurts from the sheer retardedness of this thread.

Agree

BrainDed wrote:

McClunger wrote:My head hurts from the sheer retardedness of this thread.

Agree

Helpful suggestions for these headaches:

1). Don't post in the thread beyond giving your opinion on it.
2). Take a couple Midol.

Fan174 wrote:Yes, terrible idea. Also, onside kicks worked 26 pct of the time last year. They were in the teens most years before that, and 10-11 pct just 6-7 years ago with "expected" onside kicks.

And obviously if you kick onside every single play, you're going to have more "expected" onside kicks.


Now, the punting isn't a bad idea. There are some sorta saber guys in football who say you never punt in the other teams territory if it's 4th and less than 4, and you only punt on 4th and 1 if you're inside your own 35 as the pct of gaining that yard outweigh the negatives of turning it over on downs every once in a while. I'd argue with Jermichael Finley and Quarless in a 2 TE set, Grant and Quinn Johnson in the backfield together and then Greg Jennings split to the short side of the field, you could run a kick to the wide side, OR a play action where you've got the play side TE, Quarless leak out, the FB sit down 4-5 yards behind the center, the RB provide protection for the QB, Finley coming across the field short and Jennings running across deeper, think 6 and 15 yards. So you've got Quarless(in this scenario) running that little angle route, Johnson or Kuhn sitting down in the middle of the field after the play fake, Finley coming across full speed(best option) and then Arod could always just tuck it and get the yard.

THAT would be tough to stop and I would guess we'd get 8 of 10 of those. 8 more possessions with our offense is MORE than worth the 2 failed ones.

I remember reading the same article, the guys actually argued that anything 4th and 3 or less is worth going for regardless of where you are on the field. Of course these guys are just taking raw numbers into account, not momentum, etc.

But you'd have to figure that with our offense the success rate would be well over 50 percent - a lot higher than getting the ball back from an onside kick.

I wouldn't do this early in the season, until I was really comfortable w/my defense....but going for it on 4th and short (say anything under 3 yards) in that "no man's land" where you're IN the opponent's territory, but out of FG range (or, bad field conditions...Crosby stinks...etc) wouldn't be the worst idea. The 20 yards or so of field position you'd lose if you didn't make it isn't that big a deal IMO.

However, as Fan pointed out, when the other team KNOWS you're going to onside kick, the success rate isn't going to be nearly as high (unless you've come up with 35 different ways to disguise WHERE you're going to kick it, and have 3 guys that can run fast and blow up the guy who touches the ball first...and your guys all have stickem on their hands).

But back to the punt thing....Remember the NE/Indy game when the Pats went for it on 4th and 2? Granted, I think our offense is better than theirs was last year, but it's not a sure thing. I also can't believe they'd throw to a back rather than Moss or Welker.

adambr2 wrote:I remember reading the same article, the guys actually argued that anything 4th and 3 or less is worth going for regardless of where you are on the field. Of course these guys are just taking raw numbers into account, not momentum, etc.

But you'd have to figure that with our offense the success rate would be well over 50 percent - a lot higher than getting the ball back from an onside kick.

We likely have seen varying view points of the same article. I've heard different arguments about going for it on 4th down and how it can have a dramatic impact on your success.

Obviously you have to consider when you want to do it, but suffice to say with our offense, 4th and 3 is most likely about a 65-70% conversion rate IMO.

As I said, a couple BIG TE's in Finley and Quarless/Lee, a BIG WR in Nelson, a quick one in Jennings and then a athletic, mobile QB in Rodgers.

Just roll out, pass-run option with the QB, leak the TE out, have another TE running the drag.....(I think I said this already). But I think you could quite literally run this every single play and it'd work almost all of the time.