Cameron Dicker's successful fair-catch kick brought Ray Wersching, the last player to achieve the feat, to the Chargers practice facility.
Cameron Dicker pointed to a picture of a football card to the camera. The color drawing showed a man in a royal blue San Diego Chargers jersey with thick brown hair and a thick mustache. “From me to Ray,” the Chargers kicker said while tapping his chest, “let’s go.” Ray Wersching ’s mustache has gone gray, as has the hair on his head, but 48 years after he made a 45-yard fair-catch free kick, the former Charger and San Francisco 49ers kicker is happy to pass the torch to Dicker.
After Dicker made the first successful fair-catch kick in the NFL since 1976 last Thursday, Wersching was a surprise guest in the Chargers practice facility Monday, invited by the Spanos family to fly from his home in the Bay Area to meet with the team. Before practice, he chatted with reporters and special teams coordinator Ryan Ficken and addressed the players. For Dicker, he had a special message: “Thank you.” “It brought that rule into now where everybody knows it,” Wersching said with a proud smile. The obscure rule allows a team to kick immediately after a fair catch and if it goes through the uprights and over the crossbar, it counts as a three-point field goal for the kicking team. In 2019, Joey Slye, then with the Carolina Panthers, was the last NFL player to attempt one. The Chargers watch the film of the attempt every week during special teams meetings. Players sometimes roll their eyes when Ficken cues up the footage. They were celebrating the moment the ball shot off Dicker’s foot, however, giving the Chargers a jolt of energy going into halftime against the Denver Broncos. “It's always something that you never know if it's going to occur or when it's going to occur,” Ficken said, “but you've got to be prepared and ready.” Chargers coaches realized the opportunity early enough to give Dicker enough time to practice one rep on the sideline with punter JK Scott. It was a stark contrast to Wersching’s kic
NFL Fair-Catch Kick Ray Wersching Cameron Dicker San Diego Chargers
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