You’ve seen it hundreds of times, but have you ever wondered why kickers squeeze balls before kicking off? And whether it has any effect whatsoever on what happens next?
A few of us media hacks were handling footballs outside the Dolphins’ locker room Tuesday and, recognizing how hard they felt, had serious doubts that any amount of squeezing by a human could make those things malleable.
So I put the squeeze on kicker Andrew Franks for some real, hard-hitting answers (you thankfully won’t find anywhere else).
“If you can get it more round, it’s easier to travel in the air aerodynamically,” Franks patiently said.