This isn’t a stat you want to be on the wrong side of, but that’s where the New Orleans Saints found themselves. Head coach Dennis Allen chose to try an onside kick in the final minutes of Thursday night’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams while trailing a 30-22 deficit; but the kick was not recovered.
And as observed by the Boston Globe’s Ben Volin, NFL teams are now 1-for-31 when trying an onside kick in 2023. The success rate has never been very high on these plays (and the kicks that were recovered were often surprise onside kicks), but it’s still mighty discouraging to see just how much of a longshot this tactic has become.
Recent NFL rules changes banned a running start for the kicking team as well as how many coverage players teams could line up before the kick, citing safety concerns; the result is that teams now have a 3.2% success rate when trying to recover an onside kick.
So maybe teams (including the Saints) are better off just kicking it deep and hoping for a stop. They’ll have to get creative and search for other solutions with onside kicks going the way of the dinosaur.
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