Cameron Dicker’s 57-yard free kick field goal on Thursday night was the rarest of football rarities.
The three-point play — the result of interference on punt called for a fair catch as the clock ran out in the first half of the Chargers’ 34-27 win over the Broncos — was the first successful one at the NFL level since 1976.
The play is such an NFL rarity that a YouTube highlight compilation of free kicks — ones that made their way to TV — is under four minutes long and consist of only eight attempts.
A team being in position to try a free kick field goal is uncommon enough, with only five teams actually giving it a go since 2000 — all having missed.
There have been at least 29 fair catch free kicks recorded during the regular season, according to quirkyresearch.com.
The last known player to make a fair catch free kick was Ray Wersching of the San Diego Chargers in 1976.
Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh was also at the helm for one of those, a missed 71-yard attempt by 49ers kicker Phil Dawson in 2013, during Harbaugh’s first NFL stint with San Francisco.
“I’ve been trying to get one of those every game. Cam Dicker stepped up and made it. It was huge and got the momentum back,” Harbaugh said.
The most recent attempt was Joey Slye’s 60-yard miss for the Panthers in 2019.
Until Dicker connected on Thursday, no one had scored the three points since Ray Wersching did so — fittingly for the San Diego Chargers — in 1976.
“It’s cool. I didn’t know that was the case,” Dicker said about accomplishing the rare milestone. “It was fun to go out there. It was fun to be in that scenario. With the penalty, I thought it would happen.”
It’s time to update the highlight reel — this time, with an actual make.
