Special Teams in Football

Special Teams can help win the game!

Special teams consists of a field goal kicker, placeholder, punter and long snapper.  The field goal kicker kicks at the kickoff, for field goals, and for extra points.  The placeholder is the player who holds the ball for the kicker.  The punter kicks the punts and the long snapper is the guy who snaps the ball to the punter. 

The kicker on special teams has one of the most important jobs of the game.  He begins play with a kickoff at the start of both halves of the game, and he kicks the ball down the field to the opponent after every score.  He can be the hero if a game is to be won by the extra point. 

The kickoff starts on the team’s thirty-yard line and the kicker tries to kick the ball all the way down the field into the other team’s end zone. The other ten players then run down the field to stop the receiver from returning the football. If the offense doesn’t want to run the ball back they can call a fair catch and begin play where the ball is caught. 

A special teams kicker has two occasions in which he can score points for his team.  He attempts to kick a three-point field goal should his team get the ball close to the end zone in the first three downs.  A team must gain ten yards to complete a down. A field goal attempt is made by the kicker trying to kick the ball through the two poles on either end of the field that mark the end zone. If his kick is successful, his team scores three points. 

The kicker also kicks for an extra point after every touchdown his team makes.  This is similar to a field goal except that the kick is made from the two-yard line, which means the football has to go very high in the air.   

A couple other kicks can be made by special teams. One is the onside kick which is usually at the end of a game where a team wants to get the ball back.  The objective is to kick the ball ten yards and then his team tries to recover it. The onside kick is hardly ever successful. The other kind of kick is a squib kick--it has the same goal as a kickoff but the kick stays close to the ground and then bounces.  It’s used sometimes if the other team has a player who is fantastic at kick returns. 

The special teams punter is usually brought in to the game when a team has failed to gain ten yards in three downs.  The punter will punt on the fourth down.  The other option is for the offensive team to try and gain the needed yards on the fourth down, but if they should fail the other team will be awarded the football. 

The long snapper snaps the ball to the punter who dropkicks the ball down the field to the other team.  The goal is to get the ball as far down the field as possible--in the range of 40 yards--without kicking it so far it goes into the end zone. This is usually a very high kick to give the defensive time to get as far down the field as possible.