Al Michaels wasn’t the only one a slight bit confused.
The longtime NFL broadcaster was on the call Thursday night when Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh sent out a portion of the field goal unit for a free kick — a little known quirk in the NFL rulebook that allows a team to attempt an untimed snap from scrimmage, or field goal attempt, under specific and infrequent circumstances.
Chargers’ kicker Cameron Dicker took his sweet time knocking through the 57-yard attempt at the end of the second quarter, and the kick spurred a second-half come-from-behind 34-27 win over the Denver Broncos.
“Everybody was trying to figure out what was going on,” Chargers’ linebacker Bud Dupree told ESPN. “We knew he could make it. We just didn’t understand. Was it going to be a two-point or three-point, or did we get the ball on the [one-yard line]? We didn’t know.”
Edge rusher Joey Bosa added that he, too, “was definitely confused.”
“I was ready to get in the locker room, but I’m happy we had a shot,” Bosa, a four-time Pro Bowler, told the AP. “I was just joking that you can play for 20 years and still have no idea what’s going on on the field. So, it was a good moment. It was an important swing in momentum.”
Running back Gus Edwards echoed the sentiments poetically, telling ESPN after the game that he was “confused as s–t.”
“Man, I don’t know whose idea it was to kick that, but [coach Harbaugh] knows ball … I ain’t ever seen that before,” he said.
Dicker, for his part, reveled in it.
“Looking over at [the Broncos’] sideline, it was funny,” the kicker said, per the AP. “They were confused [about] what was going on. We talk about it every week, so it was normal for us.”
The “we” Dicker refers to would be special teams coordinator Ryan Ficken and assistant special teams coach Chris “Beep” Gould.
“Ficken’ Beep, we talk about [free kicks] in our Friday meetings,” Dicker continued. “We go through that, we go through all the scenarios that can happen.”
All the scenarios, including the one that hadn’t been successfully executed in 48 years.
“I’ve been trying to get one of those every game,” Harbaugh quipped, still rosy from his team’s comeback win. “Cam Dicker stepped up and made it. It was huge and got the momentum back.”
