With the current NFL rules, onside kicks are almost impossible to recover: So far this season there have been 31 onside kicks, and the kicking team has only recovered one of them. So when Saints coach Dennis Allen tried an onside kick on Thursday night, he was taking a gamble.
It didn’t pay off, as the Rams recovered, but Allen defended the decision after the game, noting that kicking deep and forcing the Rams into a three-and-out wasn’t a great option either, given how the Rams’ offense was playing.
“I think it was 3:53, something like that, to go in the game, we were out of timeouts,” Allen said. “We hadn’t done a great job of stopping them up to that point, so I felt like the onside kick was the right play. We didn’t get it so we were going to have to stop them either way, so we went for the onside kick to try to get it and see if we couldn’t go down and try to tie the game.”
Allen acknowledged that NFL rule changes restricting how the kicking team can line up for onside kicks have made them much more difficult to recover.
“They’re challenging to get in our league now, based on the way they make you line up and everything,” Allen said.
They’re so challenging that coaches probably shouldn’t call for them except in situations where they’re absolutely necessary. The Saints didn’t have to onside kick with 3:53 left in the game.
