Staying Onside

Is it "onside" kick or "onsides" kick?

TigerBlog remains confused on that one. That's okay. It's been decades of doing this, and he's still not 100 percent sure if it's "locker room" or "lockerroom."

For today's purposes, TB will go with "onside."

TB has always wondered why kicking teams try to bounce the ball off the turf on an onside kick and have it pop straight up, seemingly creating an opportunity to allow their players to run underneath it before it comes down again. Why not just drill the ball as hard as you can to create something of a line drive situation and hope the ball hits someone on the receiving team and bounces away. It's a situation that would seem to favor chaos, no?

If you do a search for "what is the NFL record for most consecutive weeks with an onside kick recovery," you'll find some interesting stuff.

You just won't find out what the record is for consecutive weeks with an onside kick recovery.

Princeton alum Stephen Carlson is currently sitting with an active streak of two straight weeks with such a stat. Has it happened three times?

Of course, the odds overwhelmingly favor the receiving team in onside kick situations. They always have, and they went way up when the NFL made a rule change that said that prevented players on the kicking team from getting a running start.

It was a safety rule, designed to limit high-speed collisions. It also gave the receiving team a huge advantage in a situation that was already difficult for the kickers.

In fact, there was even a rule proposal that said a team could opt to attempt a fourth-and-15 play from its own 25 instead of the onside kick. If it picked up the first down, the team would keep the ball where the play ended. If it didn't pick up the first down, the defensive team would likewise get the ball at the spot where the play ended.

It didn't pass obviously. It would be an interesting change to the game, though. 

As that is not the rule, the Pittsburgh Steelers had no choice but to attempt onside kicks the last two weeks as they trailed the Cleveland Browns but scored late touchdowns. And on both occasions, Carlson was there for the recovery.

And don't confuse the idea that the odds favor the receiving team with the idea that it's easy to recover an onside kick. Far from it.

When you factor in that in the overwhelming number of cases, the play comes at the end of a close game with the outcome often on the line on the play. For the last two weeks for Carlson, you can factor in really cold weather, which makes grabbing the ball even more difficult.

And yet in both instances, he did so cleanly and held on.

Carlson grew up a Pittsburgh Steelers' fan. In his two years in the NFL with the Browns, Carlson has now had two onside kick recoveries and a touchdown reception against the Steelers.

The first recovery helped get Cleveland into the playoffs for the first time since 2002. The second recovery sealed the Browns' first playoff win since 1994. 

Can he stretch the streak to three straight? 

That would  be wildly impressive. To do so, a lot of things have to fall into place for Cleveland.

The Browns play the third of the four games this weekend in the divisional round. It starts off Saturday with the Rams at the Packers (Princeton alum John Lovett is on the Green Bay injured reserve list) at 4:35 and then follows with the Ravens at the Bills at 8:15. 

TB checked the weather for both of those sites, and it will be cold but not brutally cold and there won't be snow. 

The last game of the weekend will be Sunday night at 6:30, when Tampa Bay is at New Orleans.

And that leaves the Browns' game Sunday at 3. 

Cleveland is at Kansas City, the top seed and the defending Super Bowl champ. For Carlson to recover an onside kick, Cleveland would have to have a late lead again and then KC would have to score late (assuming the Chiefs don't try a surprise onside kick during the early part of the game).

It seems unlikely, but then again it seemed unlikely against Pittsburgh last week too, and look what happened in that one. 

Either way, Carlson has recovered an onside kick in two straight games.

There can't be a lot of people who have ever done that before.