EL SEGUNDO — The game has changed. Cameron Dicker used to kick the football as far as he could and watch the opposition let it sail out of the back of the end zone or catch it and drop to a knee. Either way, it would result in a touchback, and Dicker and his Chargers’ teammates would retreat to the sideline.
No muss, no fuss, no sweat.
Nice work if you can get it.
Then the NFL decided kickoffs were too predictable. Boring. Dull. Snooze city.
So, the league changed the rules for the 2024 season.
Dicker could still boot the ball as far as possible, drawing a touchback, but there was now an attractive alternative. He could drop the ball between the opponent’s goal line and the 20-yard line and have his coverage team race down the field to make the tackle, pinning the other team deep.
The XFL developed the new rules and employed them to great success.
Like the 31 other kickers around the NFL, Dicker began to tinker with his kickoffs. He could kick the ball to the goal line. He could bloop it just inside the 20. He could send it toward the goal line, but angle it to the right or the left. He could squib it just over the heads of the coverage and return teams.
“Trying to hit low balls that, hopefully, make guys make mistakes,” Dicker said of tinkering with his game plan during training camp and two exhibition games. “Most of it is fooling around. You go out there and say, ‘Left? OK.’ And try to do it. Or hit a super low ball and make it strange and hard to return.”
For a former soccer player like Dicker, it’s almost like approaching a penalty kick.
“I don’t even take (as many) steps (back) with it, so I go back and do a soccer run-up, a couple of steps and go after it,” he said. “In the past, if you wanted a return, you’d hang it up and get a 4.2 (-second) hangtime and the guys would run down under it. Now, if it hits the ground, those guys will be leaving.
“It gives you an extra second, maybe a half-second, if the guy bobbles it.”
Under the new rules, Dicker boots the ball from his own 35-yard line, as in the past. The coverage team lines up at the other team’s 40 with the return team lined up between its own 30 and 35, which is new. The coverage team can’t advance until the ball is either caught by the returner or hits the ground, also new.
So far, with the Chargers set to play their exhibition finale Saturday against the Dallas Cowboys, the new rules have paid off with more returns and more action than in previous years. The game has changed to the extent that Dicker even filled a gap and made a tackle in an Aug. 10 exhibition against the Seattle Seahawks.
Dicker expects more and different kickoff strategies to come when the regular season begins next month. He doesn’t believe the league’s kickers have revealed their best practices yet, because, what would be the point during exhibitions? So, stay tuned very soon for something completely different.
EXTRA POINTS
Dicker was 4 for 4 on field goals going into Saturday’s game against the Cowboys, hitting from 58 yards against the Seahawks during a 16-3 loss and from 55, 37 and 27 yards in a 13-9 loss Aug. 17 to the Rams. His 58-yard boot would have been a career-best if it had been in the regular season. …
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“The way he goes about his business epitomizes confidence,” Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said of Dicker. “That’s starting to rub off on me. I’m trying to live my life more confidently because of the example he sets. If I can live my life the way Cameron Dicker goes about his, what a fun, enjoyable life that would be.” …
The Chargers signed tight end Isaac Rex and waived defensive lineman Micheal Mason. Rex (San Clemente High School/BYU) signed with the Detroit Lions as an undrafted free agent. The Chargers signed him as general manager Joe Hortiz continued to tinker with the bottom of the depth chart.
