Michael Dickson wows Seahawks, Rams, NFL by punting his own blocked punt 68 yards
His coach calls it “one of the great kicking plays in the history of the league.”
The NFL has been around 101 years.
Yet Michael Dickson wanted to know what all the fuss is about.
What’s the big deal, the Australian-born magician punting a football wanted to know, about double-punting? About punting his own blocked punt 68 yards — after scooping up a ball that was spinning upright like a top. With one hand. In one motion, while running.
Dickson did that Thursday night, completing not only the most amazing play of the Seahawks’ 26-17 loss to the Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field but the most astounding punt anyone could imagine, and one of the more remarkable plays in the league in years.
Asked if he’s ever done something like that, the 2018 All-Pro told The News Tribune outside Seattle’s locker room late Thursday: “In American football? No.
“In Aussie Rules Football, yeah, that’s every game.”
The native of Sydney, Australia, grew up playing Australian Rules Football until age 18. Then Dickson’s kicking and punting balls in all directions, at prodigious heights and distances, on YouTube videos from Australia wowed a University of Texas football recruiter. The Longhorns offered him a scholarship to play for them, and so ended Dickson’s Aussie Rules career.
But not longing for the game.
“Felt good to get back. Been missing Aussie Rules, so felt good doing that again,” he said.
With 3 minutes left in the third quarter and the Seahawks reeling with the loss of quarterback Russell Wilson to a badly sprained finger and a 16-7 deficit, Rams backup linebacker Jamir Jones broke up the middle of Seattle’s punt team and blocked Dickson’s punt. The ball landed as wildly deflected, oblong footballs often do: unpredictably. It spun forcefully into the turf it spun itself upright, like a top.
The 6-foot-2, 208-pound Dickson ran a few yards to his right from where Jones had blocked the punt. In one motion, Dickson scooped up the ball with one hand and kept running up field.
He ran a couple steps in the open field back toward the line of scrimmage. But it was fourth and 14. Running for the first down was out of the question.
“I saw it was pretty far away, and it was just bodies everywhere,” Dickson said. “I was like, ‘I’m just going to re-kick it, and then if they make by re-kick it (by penalty), that’s better than getting a block.
“And then I just kind of cut back and was ready to get, like, smoked. But no one was around, so I got the kick off pretty clean.”
Pretty clean?
It soared 49 yards from where he punted it, right at the line of scrimmage, all the way to the Rams 29-yard line. With all of L.A.’s punt-return team including returner TuTu Atwell running toward the blocked, first punt, no one was back to field Dickson’s second punt. It bounced 19 yards toward the Rams’ goal line. Teammate Ugo Amadi downed it at the 11-yard line for the most amazing 68-yard punt you’ll ever see.
It is an everyday occurrence in Aussie Rules Football to pick up a loose ball in the open field and punt it on the run like that.
But does an Aussie Rules ball, larger, heavier and more bulbous than an NFL football, ever spin that tightly, like a top, for Dickson to have experience pick one like that up one-handed and in one motion?
“Sometimes. Rarely,” he said.
“But I was, like, ‘The only way I’m going to be able to get this off is by trying to scoop it one-handed and go for it.’
“I was like, “It’s already a bad situation. Might as well do what I’ve always done in that sport and just try to pick it up like I do, and see what I could do with it.”
No one, including the officials, immediately know the legality of it. A line judge threw a penalty flag.
“Oh, that’s coming back,” Fox television analyst Troy Aikman, the Hall of Fame quarterback, said during the game broadcast.
“That’s coming back,” Fox play-by-play announcer Joe Buck echoed, while Dickson’s punt was still bounding toward the goal line.
Official huddled. Again, Dickson figured a penalty was fine with him.
“I thought we were going to have to re-kick,” he said. “So I was just trying to stay calm and get ready for the next kick. I was like, they blocked it and we are going to get another chance, so whatever happens from here is a win.
“I was pretty chill out there after that. I was almost relaxed, in a way.”
Even after a game, Dickson said one of his fellow Seahawks specialists — either long snapper Tyler Ott or placekicker Jason Myers, he didn’t say whom — told Dickson “Oh, that has to be a penalty.
Dickson didn’t know. He just booted it like he was back home.
“I didn’t know the rules about double-kicking,” Dickson said, echoing just about everyone who was watching and not believing what they were seeing. “I just had always thought if it even gets blocked behind the line of scrimmage and I can’t advance it, I was going to do some Aussie Rules stuff and try to hit it, punt it down the field and do whatever I can.
“That was always in the back of my mind. And then I had the opportunity. And I just did it.”
The supernatural punter, who should have gotten a second Pro Bowl selection last year for an even better statisitical season (49.6 yards per punt) than in his first season when he was a Pro Bowler and All-Pro, got the immortal nickname around the Seahawks locker room of “Big Balls” Dickson in his rookie year.
The Seahawks had played the Raiders in London a few weeks before when coach Pete Carroll told the athletic Dickson he should just take off running sometime when the opposing team doesn’t have anyone on the edge rushing, just ignores him punting and sets up early for a return.
That was seeded in Dickson’s head weeks later in October, 2018 when he was backed up to his goal line punting with 2 1/2 minutes left in a game the Seahawks were leading 28-14.
Dickson didn’t see any Lions rushing from his right side. So he just took off. That was absolutely not what Carroll had in mind: his punter sprinting with the ball unauthorized from his own goal line when an opponent’s score puts it back into the game. Dickson ran and got the first down, barely, before getting smacked.
Carroll’s reaction that day? “A few” expletives, the coach said after that win.
Was Detroit on his mind when Dickson picked up the ball Thursday night?
“No,” he said, smiling. “As soon as I looked up there were...it seemed like there were bodies everywhere. And these guys are so much faster than me. There was little chance of me getting the first down.”
Teammate Tyler Lockett loved Dickson’s latest, wowing play.
“Pfff! Crazy play,” the wide receiver said.
“People are going to start making more rules, because I never knew you could kick the ball and then pick it up and kicking again. ...
“It will be interesting to see with the NFL to say that’s even possible to do. But that was a heck of a kick. Just to be able to think about it, at that moment, when everybody’s running at you?
“I mean, hey, he’s ahead of the game.”
This story was originally published October 8, 2021 at 12:01 AM.
