{"id":18833,"date":"2025-07-18T11:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T11:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/18833\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T11:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T11:47:08","slug":"detroit-lions-believe-jake-bates-could-be-a-historic-nfl-kicker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/18833\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Lions believe Jake Bates could be a historic NFL kicker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Detroit Lions<\/a> kicker Jake Bates is coming off one of the best debut seasons ever for an NFL kicker. And while I\u2019m sure the Lions don\u2019t want to put too much pressure on Bates to follow up his performance with another great one, special teams coordinator Dave Fipp is not shying away from putting a high ceiling on the 26-year-old\u2019s future<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI expect he\u2019ll have ups and downs, but I also expect he\u2019ll continue to get better and better,\u201d Fipp told The Athletic. \u201cI think he\u2019s got a chance to be one of the best who ever played.\u201d<\/p>\n

This quote comes from an excellent profile of Bates via writer Dan Pompei<\/a>. It features a detailed background of Bates falling out of love of soccer, his retirement from football and sports, and the miracle of the game finding him once again. It also features fun personal tidbits, like Bates\u2019 routine of eating five ice cream scoops the night before a game. I highly recommend it. <\/p>\n

But more than anything, the feature highlights just how much support and belief Bates has within the Lions facility. Even after a very shaky training camp, including one practice where he went six-of-14 on kick attempts and was convinced he was getting cut the next day, the Lions always believed in him. <\/p>\n

\u201cLove Bates,\u201d Dan Campbell said. \u201cHe\u2019s wired the right way. He puts the work in. He\u2019s mentally strong. When a mistake was made, he kept it simple and corrected the cause of it. He didn\u2019t get lost in his own head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bates rewarded their patience and belief with an outstanding 2024 season. He made 26-of-29 field goals and 64-of-67 extra points. He went 6-of-8 from 50 or more yards, including a make of 58 yards, and finished the season with game-winning kicks and an additional one that sent the game to overtime (where Detroit eventually won). <\/p>\n

Now he enters 2025 with a ton of expectations and a lot more confidence in his abilities. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would put myself up against anybody,\u201d Bates told Pompei. \u201cAnd I think I\u2019ve worked harder.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Detroit Lions kicker Jake Bates is coming off one of the best debut seasons ever for an NFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[571,17458,5315,17456,6642,2120,4992,4993,424,2020,17457,17459,2121,349,573,2129,99],"class_list":["post-18833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-a","tag-bates","tag-be","tag-believe","tag-could","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-lions-news","tag-detroit-lions-quotes","tag-front-page","tag-historic","tag-jake","tag-kicker","tag-lions","tag-nfl","tag-of","tag-pride","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}