How to Defend Against the Onside Kick

How to Defend Against the Onside Kick


By Steve Silverman, eHow Contributor


Football teams often find themselves in desperate situations when they are behind in the fourth quarter. A team trailing in the final moments of the game has just scored a touchdown and has to kickoff. But instead of kicking deep downfield, it attempts to get the ball back with an onside kick. The receiving team needs a plan to keep their opponent from recovering.


1


Put your players with the best hands in the front wall of your return team. That means your receivers, defensive backs and running backs. Your opponent is going to punch the ball on the ground or pop it up in the air and attempt to steal the football. If you don't have the players with good hands up front, you are playing into your opponent's hands.

2


Put at least as many receivers on the side of the ball that the kickoff coverage team has lining up on that side of the kicker. If your opponent has eight players on the kicker's far right, you need to put 8 people on your far left. If you let your opponent build up a numerical advantage and you don't respond with an equal number of receivers, you are improving their chances of coming up with the ball.

3


Have your receiving team line up with two rows on the side your opponent is favoring its coverage. As in the previous example, your opponent has 8 players lining up to the right of the kicker. You need to respond with 2 rows of four. The first row should not even worry about catching a kick that has been popped up in the air. Instead, they need to hold their ground and block the first wave of rushers. Let the second row of the onside kick team make the recovery on the ball.

4


Call for a fair catch if the kicking team has attempted a high onside kick. Your opponent is not allowed to interfere with your kick coverage if you raise your hand high in the air and wave it side to side. That is the standard fair-catch signal and some players may not know that you can call for a fair catch on an onside kick.

5


Knock the ball out of bounds if you can't catch. Remember, when your opponent is going to try an end-of-game onside kick, the play will most likely go to one sideline or the other and not down the middle. If you are trying to catch the ball but feel it is just out of your reach, knock it out of bounds. Since the play will be over and your opponent did not recover, you can knock it out of bounds and still maintain possession