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NFL kickers failed miserably, surpassed by Cincinnati and Green Bay

Josh Jackson’s cell phone exploded Sunday afternoon with essentially the same text from friends: “Warm up your leg.”

The former Ohio State kicker chuckled at the thought of a 47-year-old father of three trotting onto an NFL field for an extra point kick or field goal. On the other hand, it’s not like guys half his age crack the posts. Far from it.

Kickers missed 12 PAT attempts in Week 5 of the NFL, 11 of the failed attempts next Sunday.

Ka’imi Fairbairn from Houston, Cody Parkey from New Orleans and Tristan Vizcaino from the Los Angeles Chargers missed two each. Also misfires were Matt Ammendola of the New York Jets, Matthew Wright of Jacksonville, Randy Bullock of Tennessee, Nick Folk of New England, and Mason Crosby of Green Bay, which we’ll get to in a moment. Los Angeles Rams’ Matt Gay missed a PAT attempt on Thursday.

What in the name of Tom Dempsey is going on? (Dempsey held the record for the longest NFL field goal at 63 yards for 40 years, but ranks 200th in PAT accuracy with 89.4%.

Was Sunday an anomaly? Or just another typical Cincinnati Bengals stroll?

The Bengals played against the Green Bay Packers. You weren’t alone if you missed it. Bengal kicker Evan McPherson missed it too. Twice. McPherson missed field goals 26 seconds behind in regulation and again in overtime, which would have won the game. Instead, Green Bay escaped with a 25-22 win, thanks and no thanks to Crosby.

Bengals kicker Evan McPherson usually missed field goals 26 seconds back and again in extra time, which would have won the game on Sunday against the Packers.

The Packers’ veteran kicker inexplicably missed three consecutive field goals, including two that would have ended the game before taking a 49-yarder to victory. He also missed a PAT attempt in the second quarter. At the start of the game, he was 44 of 46 field goal attempts since the start of the 2019 season. Imagine that.

The dozen missed PATs set a Super Bowl-era record set in Week 11 during the 2016 season, the year after the NFL moved PATs from the 2-yard to the 15-yard line and hit a 20- Turned yard attempt into a 33 yarder.

Those 13 yards don’t seem like much, but in a kicker’s head they can seem like 13 miles. In 2015, kickers converted more than 99% of their extra point kicks. The same kickers only scored 94.3 of their extra points in the 2015 preseason when the league first experimented with extending the distance.

In 2020, kickers only converted on 92.6% of their PAT attempts. That number has soared to 95.5% this season, but it’s still early days. A few more Sundays like just now, and more than one kicker will be looking for a new team.

“You empathize with them,” said Tim Williams, a former Ohio State kicker who runs the website upandthrough.com and trains high school and college soccer on weekends.

Williams wonders if kickers have trouble making PATs because a “warm-up kick” has become a 3-foot putt with an easy break. No gimm.

Bengals kicker Evan McPherson usually missed field goals 26 seconds back and again in extra time, which would have won the game on Sunday against the Packers.

“I’ve never considered the shorter PAT a gimme, but I always wanted to bring one in just to get that feeling and work out the kinks,” said Williams, adding that the pedaling is 90% mental.

“It depends on how strong you are mentally,” he said. “How well can you withstand the pressure? The NFL is a very different game from college. You’re playing for money now, not your school. Not out of pride. You can tend to put extra pressure on yourself. “

Interesting how the fans react to footballers with bitterness and sympathy just because they do their job or not. An offensive lineman who is marked for hold is seldom cursed like a kicker who misses a 30-yard field goal attempt. On the flip side, few feel sorry for a lineman who is punished for moving before the snap, but sometimes we want to put our arms around the poor, failed kicker.

Jacksonville Jaguars kicker Matthew Wright missed an extra point and 53-yard field goal attempt on Sunday, both of which hit the goal post.

“Basically you have to learn to deal with it,” Williams said of the lack of kicks. “I missed one against Illinois in 1992 and it was the longest weekend of my life.”

Jackson added that every step is difficult to take: “I always tell my pals, ‘You don’t miss a kick off the couch. From then on it’s easy. ‘ “

Kickers are also pushed around as faux football players, a not entirely unjustified knock.

“I was always aware that the guys kicked their heads during training,” Jackson said of teammates who play offensively and defensively. “That’s why I wanted to be there lifting and running to earn some respect.”

In the locker room, soccer players are usually shown such respect with some reservations.

Donnie Nickey, who played security for the Buckeyes and then for eight years with the Tennessee Titans on special teams, described all kickers as “a certain level of obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

“Rob Bironas had the most quirks,” said Nickey. “It stretched all over the field, kept spinning, and was adjusted several times per game by the chiropractor. Let your own neck burst. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. “

Maybe it’s because kickers have to keep their heads straight?

When I told Jackson that I was trying to get into the mind of a kicker, he quipped, “This is a scary thing now. I don’t know if you want to go up there. “

A lot happens between the ears before it kicks between the posts. And sometimes, like on Sunday, it gets chaotic.

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