Today's Tidbit... A Short History of Onside Kicks

The original flying wedge debuted in 1892. A previous article described the play and its demise when an 1894 rule required the kickoff to travel 10 yards before the kicking team could recover the ball. That rule led most kicking teams to boot the ball as far downfield as possible, hoping to tackle the return man inside the 30-yard line.

In turn, most receiving teams positioned one player 10 or 15 yards from the kicker and spread his ten teammates further back to receive the kick or form a wedge in front of the returner.

From the beginning, coaches recognized that the receiving team's formation made them vulnerable to onside kicks, but few teams executed them. Onside kicks go unmentioned in most coaching books of the time. The bible of kicking, Kicking the American Football, by Leroy N. Mills, doesn't mention the onside kick, and Bob Zuppke, who had something to say about almost everything, offered:

Short angular kicks to the area in front of the kicking side's fast runners are apt to be successful. One or two players may be used to block the near opponents while a teammate recovers the ball.

Zuppke (1924)

That's it. Oddly, from 1892 until 1923, teams regularly executed onside punts (aka quarterback kicks or onside kicks from scrimmage) but seldom onside kicked on kickoffs. Why?