Super Bowl 51 Postgame Interview with Bill Belichick and Chris Berman

From the game’s firstever overtime to the 25point comeback to the two twopoint conversions, Super Bowl 51 will already go down in history for its incredible ending. And yet, Bill Belichick passed up on an opportunity to end the game in an even more remarkable — and spectacularly bizarre — way, as only the Patriots coach could.

After New England’s defense halted the #Atlanta #Falcons’ attempted lastminute drive, Julian Edelman fair caught a short punt from Matt Bosher on the Patriots’ own 35yard line.

With just three seconds left in regulation, it set up an opportunity for one of most obscure plays in the #NFL rulebook: The fair catch free kick. Given the Patriots coach’s affinity for the most esoteric rules and game scenarios, a Stephen Gostkowski gamewinning free kick would have arguably been the most Belichickian ending to Super Bowl LI.

Instead, the Patriots opted for a fake kneel play — a respectively weird call — which resulted in a 13yard Dion Lewis run (and injury), sending the game into overtime.

For those not familiar with the littleknown quirk, the fair catch free kick is a play teams can run only after making a fair catch. It allows the receiving team to effectively attempt a field goal from the spot of the catch, but in a kickofflike format (i.e. the kicker can take a long runup and the defense must stand ten yards back from the line of scrimmage).

But the defense also can catch and receive the kick if it comes up short, which it often does.

The most recent time the “buried” rule was seen in the NFL was a 71yard attempt by San Francisco 49ers kicker Phil Dawson in 2013. The last time it was tried in the playoffs was by 49ers kicker Mike Cofer in 1988 game, in which announcer John Madden presciently called the possibility.


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