Kickoff situation

I was looking for the onside kick in that situation. If we recover then the game is over after a knee or two. If the Ravens recover then they would have the ball around the 20 most likely and at least a few ticks would have run off the clock.

Why didn't we just attempt an onsides kick? It only has to travel ten yards, and the Ravens had very few players even lined up to receive the kick. If we recover that, we can just run out the clock for sure

Except with an onside kick, the Ravens could've got lucky and run it all the way back. I think the Patriots have a greater trust in their defense than in once-in-a-while special teams plays.

Dale Arnold actually spoke to Greg Aiello of the NFL who indicates that Belichick was wrong about this one. If the Patriots kicked the ball out of bounds, the Ravens would have the choice of taking the ball at their own 5 or where the ball went out of bounds. It's unusual that Belichick is wrong about such a thing. But his response makes no sense. Where does he get 1/2 the distance from? 1/2 the distance penalties are marked off against the penalized team. That has nothing to do with this one. The correct play was to kick it out of bounds and get it between the 10 and the 5 and that couldn't have been too hard. The Pats missed an opportunity and it almost cost them.

As an addition to the above, the Ravens could have forced the Pats to re-kick. However, as the others suggest above, a squib toward the sideline would be very small risk.

To add to Mike's Dogs post--heard you ask the question on 'EEI and I just want to thank you for following up on this (even though I think it is just for us Football Outsider-type nerds who care).

I hate to contradict Greg Aiello, but according to the 2007 NFL rulebook (specifically, a copy of the full rulebook that I found online, which I have no reason to believe isn't the real rulebook), if the kick goes out of bounds and travels at least 20 yards, the receiving team has 3 options: penalize the kicking team 5 yards and make them re-kick OR take the ball at the out of bounds spot OR take the ball 30 yards from the spot of the kick. Ordinarily they choose 30 yards from the spot of the kick, but given the circumstances, the Ravens would certainly have chosen to make the Pats rekick after a 5 yard penalty. Here is the actual language from the rulebook, Rule 6, Section 3, Article 1:

"Receivers’ ball 30 yards from the spot of the kick, or the receivers may elect to take possession of the ball at the out-of-bounds spot or five yards from previous spot and rekick."

Bill "misinterprets" another rule . . .

Dale Arnold is wrong in his reading of it, or the league email response was overly general. Half the distance to the goal is a second and DIFFERENT rule that kicks in for ANY penalty yards if the penalty takes the ball inside the 20. Same way that a personal foul or something on the defense is 15 yards by rule, but if it happens too close to the endzone, you only get half the distance to the goal.

I just looked up the rule on the NFL website, and here is what it says: "When a kickoff goes out of bounds between the goal lines without being touched by the receiving team, the ball belongs to the receivers 30 yards from the spot of the kick or at the out-of-bounds spot unless the ball went out-of-bounds the first time an onside kick was attempted."

Which leaves you wondering who gets to decide where to spot it -- the Ravens, or the officials? In any case, I don't see where the Ravens would get to ask for a rekick.

I think Belichick missed an opportunity here -- probably because he didn't think of it in time.

The bottom line is (was): blasting the ball out the back of the endzone had ZERO risk, and left the Ravens with the ball on their 20.

Any other scenario had risk, and at best, would have only resulted in shaving a few yards off their field position.

As for kicking it out of bounds, Greg Aiello, Belichick, Dale Arnold, and the "experts" on here can't even agree on what the rule is. So, given the 30 seconds the Patriots had to decide, I'm comfortable with blowing it out the endzone.

From the NFL rulebook Rule 14, Section 2, Article 1:
"If a distance penalty, enforced from a specific spot between the goal lines would place the ball more than half the distance to the offender’s goal line, the penalty shall be half the distance from that spot to their goal line. Note: This general rule supersedes any other general or specific rule other than for a palpably unfair act or the enforcement for intentional grounding, if appropriate."

Also note that this doesn't apply to Pass Interference because that is not a yardage penalty but a "spot of the foul" penalty. The key is that 14-2-1 SUPERSEDES any other general or specific rule when it comes to yardage.

Andy, the NFL website where you got your wording only contains a "rules digest", while I was quoting from a copy of the actual rulebook which goes into much more detail and seems to allow the option of a 5 yard penalty and rekick. Look it up yourself -- I got the rulebook from http://www.patscap.com/rulebook.pdf and as far as I can tell, this really is the official 2007 NFL rulebook.

There are a lot of little rules in the rulebook that aren't in the rules digest -- most notably the tuck rule.

I should also note that since I have no idea where that file originally came from, it's possible that the 2007 NFL Rulebook I posted a link to above is really a rough draft, not the final rulebook, so the stuff about rekicking may be a typo that isn't present in the actual rulebook. The wording of the rule certainly sounds a bit funny.

I really wish the NFL would publish the official full NFL rulebook to avoid these constant questions about what the rules are!

Vern: the half-the-distance rule has nothing to do with the ball being inside the 20 (since it also applies when the offense is pushed backwards near their own end zone).

Andy: any time there is a choice in the matter, it is always the team's choice. (Notably, false start penalties can *not* be declined, which is why the Pats had a third chance at 4th-and-6 against the Ravens.)