Re: Should icing the kicker be banned?
 

The rule won't be changed for at least the rest of this year.....

BUT...what you will see, and have already seen some teams doing is coaching their special teams to have the LS put his head down earlier, not directly based on when the snap is imminent, along with having blind snaps as opposed to the holder signalling the snap.

That will make it much tougher for coaches to call timeouts directly prior to the snap....and they'll have to get awfully lucky, otherwise they call them too early and no kick is sent off, or too late, and the TO doesn't count.

Re: Should icing the kicker be banned?
 

I don't think it's unethical, cheap, or douchey. I do think it's a pretty pointless and counterproductive thing to do.

Re: Should icing the kicker be banned?
 

Don't worry about removing the powers of the coaches to call timeouts. One simple way to put an end to this and not mentioned. $$$$$$$ Fine the teams/coaches who do call a timeout that is extremely obvious in those situations.

Re: Should icing the kicker be banned?
 

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edge, if you're in a casino at a roulette table and it comes up red. do you then put all your dough on black for the next spin? because the chances of it coming up red twice are approx. 22.4%? easy money!

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It's more genius than that- he bets black on the first spin also, but then pulls his chips off right before the ball drops. That gives him TWO CHANCES to hit black for the price of one!!

Re: Should icing the kicker be banned?
 

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Don't worry about removing the powers of the coaches to call timeouts. One simple way to put an end to this and not mentioned. $$$$$$$ Fine the teams/coaches who do call a timeout that is extremely obvious in those situations.

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awesome. I like it.

people in the "it doesn't matter" camp: On the first "kick", the kicker either makes it and he's the hero or he misses and he's the villain. It's an emotional moment. When he's forced to kick again, that emotion will probably have a negative effect on his performance.

The data cited against this doesn't make much sense, since the old way of icing the kicker doesn't include him actually kicking the ball and not realizing it doesn't count until well after the results are apparant.

Re: Should icing the kicker be banned?
 

This isn't a brand new situation this year. There have been many last second timeouts where the kicker goes through with the kick, only to have to do it over. It just used to be more obvious to the announcers and viewers because you'd see the defensive player call the timeout, or the ref signal for it within your scope of vision. And so you knew it didn't count earlier, whereas now we're finding out after the play.

I heard one ex-coach say he didn't like to give the kicker essentially a practice try. It gives him the opportunity to make adjustments if he misses, or to try to repeat the motion if he makes it. Seems as valid as anything on the other side of the argument.

I think we'll start seeing more coaches *not* call the timeout, as maybe the kickers and offenses will be expecting it and maybe won't be as focused on the first attempt.

Re: Should icing the kicker be banned?
 

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can we start calling it "shanahaning" the kicker? use "ice" to refer the old way?

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There was a college coach that did it a week or two before Shanahan.

Re: Should icing the kicker be banned?
 

I've thought that more coaches would use such bluffing strategy more frequently to try to keep kickers off-balance but it really hasn't happened much I don't think.
But if a kicker knows he has to wait longer then the impact of the time-out is not as great. Reverse-psychology to try to make him kick it the first time when he might not be as ready due to timeout-anticipation could be a valid strategy.

Re: Should icing the kicker be banned?
 

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The kicker gets more clutchier during the 2nd kick.

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And he isn't any MORE likely to miss it the second time, but this fact is not INSIGNIFICANT!

Re: Should icing the kicker be banned?
 

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Basically, there's lots of things that can go wrong, and you improve you chances of some of them when you let the kicker think about the entire situation for a minute.

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This line of thinking has always bothered me about icing the kicker. It's completely illogical. You're giving a professional athlete extra time to prepare to do an act that he is paid to do. Why would that hurt him?

If Phil Dawson is kicking from the Oakland dirt, why would he do worse on the second attempt? If anything he should do better, having had a practice shot at kicking from the dirt.