Super Bowls have turned on successful onside kicks. End-of-game sequences were made more exciting with a wobbly boot and the luck of the bounce.
It was the one trick up a coach's sleeve that could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It was equal parts skill and chaos. First, the kicker had to get the ball to bounce at precisely the right moment and then his teammates would have to jump in the air to catch it or pounce on it after the opposition muffed it.
The New Orleans Saints opened the second half of Super Bowl XLIV with a surprise onside kick while trailing, 10-6. They went on to score a touchdown on the possession and outscored the Indianapolis Colts, 25-7, in the second half for a 31-17 victory.
The Steelers didn't win Super Bowl XXX, but they made it more exciting when Norm Johnson's surprise onside kick early in the fourth quarter gave the Steelers the momentum and a real chance to complete a comeback against the Cowboys that ultimately fell short.
After Johnson's 46-yard field goal made it 20-10, Steelers coach Bill Cowher was asked by special teams coach Bobby April if he wanted to do a surprise onside kick. Cowher then bounced the idea off receivers coach Chan Gailey.
"Surprise onside, Chan?" said Cowher, who was wired with a microphone for the game by NFL Films. "Chan, surprise onside? All right, let's do it. Surprise onside. I'm not leaving anything in the bag."
Steelers defensive back Deon Figures recovered the kick, the Steelers scored a touchdown to make it 20-17 and then forced a Dallas punt. They had a chance to tie or win the game with 4:15 remaining on the clock before Neil O'Donnell's second-down pass was intercepted by Larry Brown. Still, the six-minute sequence that was started with the onside kick is how that Super Bowl is remembered by Steelers fans.
But now, fourth months before the start of the 2020 season, the NFL is strongly considering a new rule that would give teams an alternative to the onside kick to retain possession after a score. Under a proposed rules change, the onside kick would be replaced by a fourth-and-15 play from the 25-yard line. The league's owners will vote on it and other rule proposals May 28.
For old-school, NFL traditionalists, the fourth-and-15 is a hard pill to swallow, but it's time.
The onside kick has gone from exhilarating to boring.
In 2018, the NFL instituted a new set of rules to make kickoffs safer. In turn, those rules made recovering onside kicks much more difficult.
In the past two seasons, only 6% of the attempted onside kicks were recovered by the kicking team. By contrast, in 2017, 21% of the onside kicks were recovered by the kicking team.
The proposed fourth-and-15 play hopes to find a happy medium that will inject more excitement into the game.
There was a time traditionalists balked at the two-point conversion, calling it a "college gimmick." But the two-point conversion was adopted by the NFL in 1994 and is now widely accepted.
The NFL does not take rules changes lightly. Its analytics department did research and found that third- and fourth-and-15 plays had a 16.8% success rate from 2002-2018 on plays from games with a score differential of eight points or fewer. (Plays run in the final two minutes of each half were excluded.)
Also, the NFL has conditions when the fourth-and-15 play can be used. It can be used only when teams are trailing and there will be a limit of two attempts per game.
Onside kicks won't be prohibited. They can still be used at anytime in a game, so the surprise element of the play will remain. But think of the late-game possibilities with the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and other quarterbacks in these situations.
Not long ago, the Steelers were using the two-point conversion as a strategic part of their game plans because they believed their success rate would be higher than the league average. And there are many in the analytics community that will tell you it's the smart move to go for two after every touchdown.
Now, just as offensive coordinators are tasked with coming up with two-point plays every week for opponents, they'll be asked to come up with a few fourth-and-15 plays.
Some of the most exciting plays in NFL history have come on longer downs and distances:
_ In Super Bowl LIV in February, the Chiefs trailed the 49ers, 20-10, with 7:13 remaining. On third-and-15, Mahomes found Tyreek Hill for a 44-yard gain, a play that jump-started their comeback and led to their 31-20 victory.
_ In a 2010 divisional round playoff game at Heinz Field, the Steelers and Ravens were tied at 24 with 2:07 remaining. On third-and-19, Roethlisberger fired a 58-yard pass to Antonio Brown that set up the winning touchdown.
_ In a 1975 divisional round playoff game between the Vikings and Cowboys, Roger Staubach completed a fourth-and-17 pass to Drew Pearson for a 32-yard gain with 44 seconds remaining. Two plays later, he completed the original Hail Mary pass to Pearson for the winning 50-yard touchdown in a 17-14 victory.
Now think of a recent onside kick attempt by the Steelers. Got it?
No offense to Chris Boswell and his ill-fated, trick-shot attempt against the Ravens in 2016, but games in the hands of highly skilled quarterbacks is much more appealing than at the feet of kickers whose percentages have dipped to record lows.
It's a quarterback-driven, offense-centric league. Close games and excitement means eyeballs on televisions.
That's what the owners will be weighing as they try to balance tradition against innovation and enhancement of the game.
