CFL RB Jeshrun Antwi of the Montreal Alouettes executes an onside punt. CFL RB Jeshrun Antwi of the Montreal Alouettes executes an onside punt. (@CFLFan13 on Twitter.)
FeaturedInternationalBy Andrew Bucholtz on

Many of the most remarkable differences in Canadian football relative to American football come in the kicking game. And that was proven again in Saturday’s Canadian Football League clash between the Montreal Alouettes and Ottawa Redblacks, where Montreal turned a second-and-18 into a new set of downs thanks to…a one-yard onside punt.

What’s going on there? Well, in Canadian football, players can punt (which the current CFL rulebook defines as “letting the ball fall from the hands and kicking it with the foot before it touches the ground”) at any time. There are some specific formation rules on a standard punt from scrimmage, but plays like this instead count as an “open-field kick.”

Open-field kicks have led to a lot of remarkable moments over the years, from back-and-forth punts to other rouge avoidance to pass-and-punt plays. But this one was quite unusual even by those standards, and it only worked thanks to a very particular set of circumstances. To make this short punt that RB Jeshrun Antwi kicked and then recovered work, the Montreal line couldn’t be more than one yard down field when he kicked it (Rule 5, Article 9), and only he or other onside players (behind the ball when kicked) could recover it without having to worry about a no yards penalty.

The recovery here is discussed in Articles 11 and 14, and it only works to set up new first downs because the kick was made from behind the line of scrimmage and crossed the line of scrimmage (Article 14). And being onside allows Antwi to recover this, but despite the onside status, he “shall not interfere with an opponent attempting to recover the ball” (Article 11). So this wouldn’t have worked at all if an opposing player had been closer and had been able to try and recover the ball.

That long list of conditions explains why we don’t see this more often. (And it was probably only tried here because 2nd and 18 is a relatively desperate situation in three-down football, but also, at least some failures here would still have given the Alouettes a chance to do a normal punt on third down.) But it certainly worked out well here, and that led to a lot of social media commentary:

This particular drive only ended with another, more regular, punt from the Alouettes. But they did manage to put up a 15-0 lead on the Redblacks by half. And they certainly got the world talking with this creativity.

[CFLFan13 on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz