That was a great onside kick.
It was almost like a change-up.
We never see onside kicks like that and that's what confused the Falcons Special Teams.
Most kickers try to get the ball as high as they can in the air to allow players time to get there, but this kick was something different.
Beautiful onside kick by Zuerlein.
I give our special teams coach and Zuerlein a lot of credit for this kick.
The problem with onside kicks since changes were made to kickoffs is that the coverage cannot get there in time. Just look at our onside attempts the past couple of years. The kicker bounces the ball along the ground. A member of the return team falls on it and then the coverage team gets there too late to do anything about it.
It's clear that Fassel and Zuerlein designed this kick to move slowly along the ground to allow the coverage team the opportunity to get in position to contend for it. They also knew that by putting a spin on the ball that the return team isn't used to seeing that the return team would be less likely to want to try to field it if it wasn't going to go 10 yards. Why risk jumping on a spinning ball and flubbing it if it wasn't going to make it the required distance? If the return team had jumped on the ball, at least we would have been in position to try to dive in and dislodge it.
We had also spent time on this kick learning how to jump on it and secure it, so the spin favored our special teammers. You could tell when Goodwin jumped on it, he knew to field it with his hands instead of trying to jump on it with his body, which likely would have caused it to squirt free.
Brilliant design and execution IMO. I think it was a great solution to the onside kick problem that was created with the rule change. It likely won't ever work again because anyone facing us is going to practice for it, but you want every advantage you can get going into a game, and the special teams group created one.