Getty Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis.
During the Bill Belichick era, the New England Patriots have done everything they can to exploit the NFL rulebook. Josh McDaniels has brought that philosophy to the Las Vegas Raiders. Recently, the team started using a holder on kickoffs. To the average fan, they may have just assumed it was due to wind. However, that was not the case.
The holder was angling the ball in a way that allowed kick Daniel Carlson to get more hangtime on his kickoffs. This gave the coverage team a chance to stop the kick returner short of the 25-yard line. It was a strategy that was working great for the Raiders and special teams coordinator Tom McMahon. Unfortunately, the fun is over. The NFL has caught wind of the team’s strategy and has nipped it in the bud.
According to FootballZebras.com, the NFL has told the Raiders that they are violating league rules and are no longer allowed to use a holder on kickoffs. Per the report, the team did receive clearance from senior vice president of officiating Walt Anderson to use a holder but now the NFL is changing its tune. Nobody can fault the Raiders for exploiting a loophole but the league has acted swiftly to stop it from becoming a trend.
McDaniels Spoke About the Rule Recently
The Raiders weren’t trying to be sneaky by exploiting the loophole. As noted earlier, they even sought permission from the NFL. McDaniels was open about what the team was doing just a week ago and explained why there were doing it.
“They clarified a rule a couple weeks ago, that you’re permitted to hold the ball on the top of the tee now, so we’ve got a good kicker, you can add hang time to the kick, and I think you saw Daniel use that to our advantage,” McDaniels said last week, via Pro Football Talk. “As long as you don’t kick it into the end zone, extra hang time, put it at the goal line, we’re further down there, it gives the coverage team a better opportunity to make tackles inside the 25-yard line.”
McDaniels has no problem bending the rules as long as he’s not breaking them.
“That’s the rules,” he said. “They clarified it a couple weeks ago. If it helps us gain some type of advantage, we’ll try to do that.”
Did Pat McAfee Blow up Raiders’ Spot?
The Raiders may have gotten away with this scheme a little longer but it was starting to become a story. Much of that is thanks to Pat McAfee. He recently went into detail about what the Raiders were doing and it got a lot of traction.
“The special teams coordinator there at the Raiders I know him a little bit,” McAfee said last week on the “Pat McAfee Show.” “That f***ing guy will read the rule book every single day trying to find — and I had to ask him, ‘Hey, am I seeing what I think I’m seeing on our kickoffs? Am I allowed to talk about this?’ He said, ‘All legal, babe. Do what you got to do.’ That’s something I’ve never seen done before, and if it’s been legal this entire time and somebody figured out the loophole, should’ve been doing that the entire time, and it should help out the kickoff coverage a lot. Also, this is going to create a lot more returns. … It’s an innovative that I’m actually very pissed off I didn’t think of when we were doing this whole thing.”
Now I’m wondering if McDaniels was still with the
Patriots, would the League have stepped in to stop it.