Many Detroit Lions fans were likely puzzled in the second quarter of the team’s Week 10 matchup against the Washington Commanders when kicker Jake Bates seemed to intentionally boot the ball out of bounds. The confusion probably only mounted when the officials spotted the ball at the Commanders’ 25-yard line. Under the new kickoff rules, kickoffs typically are placed at the 40-yard line when the ball goes out of bounds.

But the Lions knew of a interesting stipulation in the rulebook, and they were able to exploit the odd loophole twice in the game. Let’s break down what happened.

To take you back into the moment, the first key part of this situation is that on both “loophole” out-of-bounds kicks, the Lions were kicking from 50-yard line thanks to a Commanders personal foul penalty on Det

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