SANTA CLARA, Calif. \u2014 The 50-plus-yard field goals that once were a rarity in the NFL are now as routine as far shorter kicks a generation ago. The range for many kickers now exceeds 60 yards, changing late-game strategy in a major way.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0kicking\u00a0revolution has sparked questions about whether the\u00a0balls\u00a0are juiced.<\/p>\n
Not quite, but there is a major difference this year, with teams now having the chance to prepare\u00a0kicking\u00a0balls\u00a0before game day and practice with the same\u00a0balls\u00a0they use in games. The added length that gives kickers had Philadelphia defensive coordinator Vic Fangio comparing it to the home run explosion during baseball’s steroid era, starting in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like they need an asterisk here,\u201d Fangio said. “It was the live ball era or the asterisk for those home runs (Barry) Bonds and (Sammy) Sosa and (Mark) McGwire were hitting. The way they\u2019ve changed the ball, the NFL, the\u00a0kicking\u00a0ball has drastically changed the field goals.”<\/p>\n
Fangio’s comparison might be a bit hyperbolic, with kickers saying the more broken-in\u00a0balls\u00a0travel only a few yards farther, but even that could put records for long-distance field goals in jeopardy.<\/p>\n
There have already been four kicks made from at least 60 yards this season \u2014 one shy of the single-season record \u2014 with Tampa Bay’s Chase McLaughlin\u00a0hitting a 65-yarder\u00a0against Fangio’s Eagles in Week 4, just 1 yard shy of Justin Tucker’s record set in 2021.<\/p>\n
Dallas’ Brandon Aubrey\u00a0made a 64-yarder in Week 2, and Pittsburgh’s Chris Boswell and Minnesota’s Will Reichard also made kicks of at least 60 yards.<\/p>\n
Fangio predicted Aubrey will eclipse the 70-yard barrier this year.<\/p>\n
Aubrey said he believes the biggest change is the more consistent\u00a0balls\u00a0providing more peace of mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nice part about the rule is now you get to the point where you don\u2019t have to think about the\u00a0balls,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be, \u2018Is this ball going to be in good shape or not?\u2019 Now it\u2019s, \u2018OK, the\u00a0balls\u00a0are going to be what they\u2019re supposed to be.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
NFL has more long kicks than ever<\/p>\n
Long-distance kicks have become far more prevalent as the quality of kickers has improved, thanks to more training and specialized coaching. The NFL has set records in each of the last four seasons for made field goals of at least 50 yards, with the total reaching 195 in 2024 \u2014 doubling the total from every NFL season until 2015.<\/p>\n
Kickers are making 72.5 per cent of field goals from at least 50 yards \u2014 nearly double the rate from three decades ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s definitely an advantage for specialists this year,\u201d said 49ers long snapper Jon Weeks, who is entering his 16th season in the NFL. \u201cYou\u2019re starting to see the field-goal distance line back up a little bit. That\u2019s just kind of natural. It\u2019ll be exciting to see what some of these big-legged kickers can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the trend toward longer kicks has been a steady one the past two decades, it has increased even more so far this season following the change in rules for the \u201cK ball,\u201d with the 28 made kicks from at least 55 yards the most ever through five weeks and more than in any entire season until 2022.<\/p>\n
History of the K Ball rules<\/p>\n
The change this year came after seven teams \u2014 Baltimore, Cleveland, Houston, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Minnesota and Washington \u2014 made a proposal to reduce the stress on equipment staff on game days.<\/p>\n
Before this season,\u00a0balls\u00a0designated for use in the\u00a0kicking\u00a0game were shipped directly to the officials and brought to the stadium on game day. Teams then had a 60-minute window to prepare three\u00a0kicking\u00a0balls, using only a wet towel, a dry towel and a special ball brush.<\/p>\n
Now, teams were given 60 \u201cK\u00a0balls\u201d before the season to prepare for games, with each team getting three each game that are approved by the referee. No ball can be used in more than three games.<\/p>\n
The initial rules for\u00a0kicking\u00a0balls\u00a0were first put in place in 1999 after specialists were allegedly doing all sorts of things to manipulate the ball, including using microwave ovens, dryers and saunas to soften the leather and make them easier to kick.<\/p>\n
Initially, only the officials were allowed to prepare the\u00a0balls, and kickers and punters complained they were too slick. That changed following the 2006 season, with teams getting a short window on game day to prepare the\u00a0balls, after Dallas quarterback Tony Romo dropped a snap as the holder on a potential game-winning field goal in a playoff loss to Seattle.<\/p>\n
Now the\u00a0balls\u00a0for the\u00a0kicking\u00a0game can be prepared in advance \u2014 just like the\u00a0balls\u00a0for the rest of the game \u2014 but teams are mostly limited to using the towels and a special Wilson-branded brush.\u00a0Balls\u00a0can’t be subjected to high heat like dryers or microwaves and the shape can’t be altered at all.<\/p>\n
What’s the impact of the new\u00a0balls?<\/p>\n
Titans special teams coach John Fassel downplays the impact of the new rules, saying the approximately 20 minutes the equipment staff previously had to prepare each of the three\u00a0kicking\u00a0balls\u00a0was sufficient.<\/p>\n
Jets kicker Nick Folk equated the difference in the\u00a0balls\u00a0to buying a new baseball glove each week and breaking it in for an hour, compared with having a glove that has been broken in over a long period of time and now fits just perfectly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy it happened,\u201d Folk said. \u201cWe get to kind of do just like quarterbacks get whatever they want to do to the ball, as long as it looks like a football and the logo\u2019s still there and all that stuff, I think they\u2019re pretty lenient with that. It\u2019s a very welcoming thing to be able to kind of look at a ball and be like: \u2018All right, I want to kick this one this week, I want to kick this one this week.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The impact isn’t solely on field goals. Punts are traveling farther, too. After the average dropped by 1.5 yards from 1998 to 1999 when the first \u201cK\u00a0balls\u201d were put in use, there has been a gradual uptick since the rules first changed in 2007.<\/p>\n
The average punt now travels 47.7 yards, which would have been the individual single-season record as recently as 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
San Francisco punter Thomas Morstead said he lets the equipment staff deal with the ball preparation but does see a difference, especially compared with when he first entered the league in 2009 and some home teams would try to sneak fresh\u00a0balls\u00a0in for the visitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not like a scientist back there measuring things out,” he said. \u201cI just give them general things like, hey, if the leather is nice and soft and the ball\u2019s relatively beat in, and we want to keep the PSI as high as possible, which is 13.5, then I\u2019m good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Niners kicker Eddy Pineiro estimates the broken-in\u00a0balls\u00a0add maybe 3 or 4 yards to the distance on kicks, calling the difference meaningful but not as impactful as\u00a0kicking\u00a0at a high altitude in Denver.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s normal now to kick a 60-plus-yard field goal,\u201d said Pineiro, who hit a career-best 59-yarder this past week but once\u00a0kicked an 81-yarder\u00a0in practice in college at Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like: \u2018Oh my God. Wow!\u2019 like it used to be. It\u2019s kind of expected. But that\u2019s part of the game. The game’s evolving for the better, and kickers are making more kicks in and farther kicks. If you don\u2019t have a broken-in ball, it\u2019s a lot harder to hit a 60-yard field goal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA CLARA, Calif. \u2014 The 50-plus-yard field goals that once were a rarity in the NFL are now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-195998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}