Football 101

Ok, so I'm guessing most of the people reading this don't care too much about football, but here is a pretty interesting rule I learned about during my Official's Class. If you don't care, tell somebody else, maybe they'll be impressed! Here goes...

So, in football you can be awarded a free kick. These include a kickoff after scoring points (or to start a half) and when a team has to kick the ball away if they take a safety. Well, a team can also opt to take a free kick after a fair catch. Imagine, if you will, there are 5 seconds left in a game and you force a team to punt from their own 10 yard line. They kick and you fair catch it on their 40. In this situation, most teams go for the Hail Mary (aka The Prayer). However, they COULD do a free kick (because it's after a fair catch). Just like on a kickoff, the other team MUST be at least 10 yards away and you can put the ball on a tee! Even most high school kickers can kick a ball 50+ yards off a tee. So, instead of the Hail Mary that never works, they could instead tee it up and kick with no defense and it's still worth three points! Oh, and if you're wondering, the free kick after a fair catch is the ONLY one worth points. If you make it through the uprights on a kickoff or after a safety, all you get is a pat on the back.

Hopefully that made sense. If you don't care, TOO BAD, I thought it was pretty amazing that you NEVER see anyone do that.