Our week of preseason games started with 2 games last night, so I went to watch one of them. Here's what one of the teams did every time they kicked off:
35 yard line ______________________________________________________
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
40 yard line ______________________________________________________
1) Lined up 11 players between the 35 and 40. No player was ever deeper than the 35.
2) Two (or sometimes all 3) of the three players in the middle (players 5, 6, & 7) approached the ball with one (or two) of them faking and one of them actually kicking it. As the faker(s) passed the ball, he moved from one side of the ball to the other, before it was kicked by the person who actually became the Kicker. Think of 7 crossing over in front of 6, or 5 crossing over in front of 6, or both.
3) One of the outside players (sometimes player 2 and sometimes player 10) ran full speed from the side and broke down the middle of the field right after the kicker kicked the ball. He never went deeper than the 35.
4) All of the kicks were either grounded onside attempts or pooch kicks behind the first line of R players.
So, the formation is either legal or illegal depending on which of the players (5, 6, or 7) actually kicked the ball, which side of the kicker the "faker(s)" was/were on when the ball was kicked, and which side of the kicker the motion man (from point 3 above) was on when the ball was kicked.
The first time they did this, I had no idea what happened. I was prepared and counting the other times that they kicked off, and I still couldn't say whether or not there were 4 players on each side of the ball when it was kicked. During the first half, I was in the stands, on the 50 yard line. During the second half, I was OoB at the goal line. I would have to see the video in slow motion, with the ability to stop right at the kick, in order to accurately say whether or not this was legal. In real time, it looks like a Harlem Globetrotters warmup routine.
