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The fair catch kick has been present in the NFL rulebook since the league's inception, [14] and also remains in the NFHS rulebook. [20] The fair catch kick is not legal in National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) football; the NCAA abolished the fair catch in 1950, but re-added it a year later. When the fair catch returned to the ...
NCAA rules on fair catches are similar to NFL and NFHS rules, except it does not have the fair catch kick option, and a fair catch from a kickoff that is caught between the receiving team's goal line and its 25-yard line is a touchback. The NCAA abolished the fair catch in 1950 but reinstated it in 1951 without the fair catch kick option.
The NFL only considers kickoffs, safety kicks or onside kicks to be free kicks and specifically states that a fair-catch kick "is not a free kick." There's also this from Rule 10, Section 2 ...
It was the first fair-catch kick attempt in the NFL since 2019. “It's my favorite rule in football, and just been trying to get one of those, like every game,” Harbaugh said with a smile postgame.
Only five NFL teams had previously tried the kick in the 21st century, and nobody had successfully executed it since Ray Wersching did it for the San Diego Chargers 48 years ago. Dicker's 57-yarder also was the longest fair-catch kick in NFL history, besting Paul Hornung's 52-yarder for Green Bay in 1964.
For football obsessives like Harbaugh who relish oddities and unprecedented feats, Dicker's kick was delightful. The seldom-used rule allows a team that has just made a fair catch to try a free kick for three points. The kick is attempted from the line of scrimmage, and the defenders all must stand 10 yards away.
It takes a specific circumstance for an NFL team to try a fair catch free kick. That's why one hadn't been made in almost 50 years. On Thursday night, viewers got a lesson on a little-known rule ...
The NCAA made a further rule change effective in its 2018 season, treating a fair catch on a kickoff, or free kick following a safety, between the receiving team's goal line and 25-yard line as a touchback. The NFL adopted this later change in 2023, and changed its spot for touchbacks on kickoffs to the 30-yard line in 2024. All other touchback ...