Socci’s View: Patriots’ Slye and Chargers’ Dicker have experienced what few other kickers have in NFL history
They first crossed paths on the Bermudagrass of Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium during pregame warmups on the final Saturday night of the NFL’s 2022 preseason.
Veteran Joey Slye was about to begin his first full season kicking for the Washington Commanders, his fifth team in three years since leaving Virginia Tech. Rookie Cameron Dicker, who recently joined the Ravens after being waived by the Rams, hoped the chance to spell Baltimore’s regular Justin Tucker would help him earn an opportunity elsewhere.
Dicker eventually did, providing temporary relief for an injured Jake Elliott of the Eagles, before landing a full-time role that remains his with the Chargers. Time and again in Los Angeles, usually on Fridays, Dicker continued to come across Slye in the video cut-ups special teams coordinator Ryan Ficken used to educate his unit on one of football’s most obscure rules and rarely-seen plays.
Slye had been the last NFL player to try a fair catch kick as a member of the Carolina Panthers in 2019. No one had made one in the league since Ray Wersching of the San Diego Chargers in 1976. Though seldom attempted and never successful for close to a half century, the play still had to be practiced periodically and reviewed regularly.
In the NFL, when a team calls for a fair catch on a kickoff or punt, it then opts for one of two courses of action. It can put the offense on the field, given a new set of downs. Or it can try either a drop kick or a place kick without a tee.
Almost always, option one is automatic. But every few years or more, the second choice is right for the situation. The ball is placed at the yard line where the fair catch is made or, if the punt includes a penalty, where the infraction is marked off. From a free kick formation (similar to a kickoff), separated from opponents by 10 yards, a drop kick or kick out of a hold that clears the crossbar and splits the uprights of the goal post counts for three points.
There is no snap. And no rush to block the try. Yet, there is risk. If the kick is missed, the opponent takes over at that spot. And if the kick is short, the opponent can return it.
So, the best – really, only – time to try one is at the end of the half or game. That’s why there’s been only 33 attempts on record in NFL history; and why before Slye in 2019, the previous try was in 2013 and the one before that was in 2008.
Two Thursdays ago, when the situation presented itself in the final seconds of the second quarter of their game against the Denver Broncos, the Los Angeles Chargers were ready for it thanks to their head coach Jim Harbaugh’s experience and his assistant Ficken’s Friday film reviews.
Harbaugh had called for a fair catch kick 16 years earlier as head coach of the 49ers inside the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, where Phil Dawson left his 71-yard attempt short and wide left.
“It’s my favorite rule in football,” Harbaugh would say after the Chargers-Broncos affair. “I’ve been trying to get one in every game…This was our chance. This was our moment.”
Trailing 21-10 in the final eight seconds of the first half, the Bolts’ Derius Davis called for a fair catch of Riley Dickson’s 46-yard punt. Davis was interfered with, resulting in a chaotic and unnecessary scramble as the ball bounded away from him and adding to the confusion soon to ensue.
As the penalty was assessed, with the ball spotted at Denver’s 47-yard line, and each team called time out, the audience streaming Amazon Prime’s television broadcast heard retired referee and TV analyst Terry McAuley explain the fair catch kick rule. They also heard commentator Kirk Herbstreit’s bemusement, initially wondering if Harbaugh was even aware of the rule and later if teams even practiced the play.
He was. And they do. In Los Angeles, often to eye rolls by many of the Chargers in Ficken’s meeting room, they are also reminded of it, week after week. Ficken goes over it so often, reracking clips of free kicks like Slye’s in 2019, because special teams personnel changes frequently. Players get injured, released, signed and elevated from the practice squad. Everyone has to know how and where to line up, what to do and what not to do.
“We cover the clips every week in our meetings,” Ficken would later say. “And they’re like, ‘Oh, here it is again.’”
Included in ‘it’ is the last play of the first half between Carolina and Tampa Bay at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Oct. 13, 2019. The Buccaneers had faced 4th-and-20 from their 26-yard line. But after three straight false start penalties were called on long snapper Zach Triner, forcing a 4th-and-35 from the 11, punter Bradley Pinion had to kick out of his end zone.
Panthers returner Brandon Zylstra called for the fair catch with :01 on the clock. Future Patriots Slye and holder Michael Palardy got set amid nine teammates at midfield and Joey took aim at recent history from 60 yards away.
“The mechanics, logistics of it should be very easy. Just get your kickoff team ready, pull your backside safety out, put your holder in and go,” Slye said this week, relating his London experience to the one Dicker faced last week in L.A. “It is nice knowing that you don’t have to really rush it. You can take your time to set up and get everything ready to go. It’s usually pretty nice to kind of calm you down a little bit.
“So for him (Dicker), it’s just lining up and getting ready to go. He’s been doing really, really well for like the last three years he’s been in LA.”
The onus, Slye adds, is on others as much, if not more than the kicker.
“The punt return team (has) to get ready for the fair catch free kick. And then more of (it) is on the kickoff return team because it’s like a kickoff. You have to get your kickoff return team set up,” he explains. “It’s essentially, get your kickoff team ready to go. Make sure they understand where the line is. If the ball is on the 47-yard line, because of the new rules, the kickoff team has to have their front foot on the 48 and just don’t move.”
Slye’s fair catch kick tailed right of the goal post. In the end, his miss didn’t matter much. Carolina led 17-7 at the time and wound up winning, 37-26.
Dicker’s attempt turned out to be far more meaningful in many ways. Down 11 in a divisional game, coming off back-to-back losses, the Chargers needed to stage a rally in hopes of drawing closer to clinching a playoff berth.
From 57 yards out, Dicker delivered. The longest fair catch kick converted in NFL history sparked Los Angeles’s comeback en route to a 34-27 victory. The Bolts are now in position today to potentially clinch a playoff berth in Foxborough.
And from now on, as Patriots special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer hinted at last Friday, he’ll be teaching off the highlight of Dicker’s fair catch kick the way Ficken taught off Slye’s.
As for Slye, like every other kicker in the NFL, he’ll continue preparing himself in the event a fair catch kick opportunity arises again. If you get to Gillette Stadium early enough today, you’ll see him in warmups setting up kicking sticks that hold the ball in place and practicing his swing.
He won’t simply be getting loose. Watch closely enough, and you’ll see him nodding his head, as if imagining that his holder Bryce Baringer is there instead of the sticks and needs to be cued when Slye is ready to kick.
No doubt, on the other half of the field, Dicker will be doing the same. And at some point, the two specialists who first met on a summer’s night in the mid-Atlantic will get reacquainted in the chilled air of a New England winter.
Bob Socci is in his 12th season calling play-by-play for the Patriots Radio Network on 98.5 The Sports Hub.
