NFL kickers better than ever on long field goals, but missing key kicks late in games

Two things are happening simultaneously in the NFL this season, especially in the past two weeks: Kickers are making longer field goals more often and more consistently than ever before, and they're also changing the outcome of games by missing kicks in crucial moments.

Consider this past weekend. Washington's Austin Seibert missed a game-tying extra point with 21 seconds left in a loss to the Cowboys, and Houston's Ka'imi Fairbairn missed a 28-yard field goal in the final two minutes that would have tied the game against Tennessee. The Cowboys won despite a blocked field goal and a miss from the usually near-perfect Brandon Aubrey.

All this during a week when NFL kickers went 14-for-16 on field goals of 50 yards and longer.

A week earlier, the Bengals' Evan McPherson missed two field goals in the fourth quarter of a tied game that Cincinnati would lose, the Falcons' Younghoe Koo missed three field goals in a three-point loss to the Saints, and the Ravens' Justin Tucker, one of the game's all-time best kickers, missed two field goals in a close loss to the Steelers. The Bears' Cairo Santos had a game-winning field goal blocked by the Packers as time expired.

NFL kickers went 14-for-18 on field goals of 50 and longer that week.

Five years ago, the league average on kicks of 50 and longer was 58%, but this year, the success rate is an unprecedented 73%. If that short-term improvement doesn't stand out, consider that in 1994, the same success rate was 36%, and in 1974, it was 13%.

NFL kickers have made more 50-plus field goals in the past two weeks (28) than they did in the entire 1994 season. Coaches are trusting their kickers from farther and farther out, so long field goals are much more common. Five years ago, the league had 84 successful field goals from 50-plus yards; this season, the NFL is on pace for 205.

That makes kickers all the more important to an NFL team's success. Teams are averaging a record 1.76 field goals per game this season (up 10% from five years ago) as compared to 2.14 extra points, which is down from an all-time high of 2.46 per game in 2013. Field goals account for 23% of all NFL points this season, up from 19% in 2020.

In today's NFL, a busy kicker means a struggling offense, so kicking success is rarely celebrated. The Steelers have won two games this season in which kicker Chris Boswell has scored all their points: 18-10 over the Falcons in Week 1 and 18-16 over the Ravens in Week 11. Boswell hit six field goals in each win. 

Most NFL fans know that the Eagles' Saquon Barkley is on pace to challenge the NFL's single-season rushing record, but did you know that Boswell is on course to break the league's field-goal record? He is 31-for-33 on field goals in 2024, putting him on pace for 48 this year, which would break the NFL record of 44, set by the Eagles' David Akers in 16 games in 2011.

All that sets up dual truths: kickers have never been more prolific, and yet they are still fallible and mortal. The misses are still glaring and difficult and painful in a way that overshadows the overall surge in long kicks.

"This dude is just making freaking kicks all year long, so we still have a lot of ball left and making a little playoff run," Commanders punter Tress Way said of Seibert's missed kick Sunday. "It's just really tough. Rinse and repeat and come back and get ready for Tennessee."

Aubrey, whose own misses on Sunday were obscured by the final score, sought the same grace for his counterpart: "I wouldn't be too harsh on him," he said of Seibert, who went on injured reserve Tuesday. "I mean, everyone has a bad day every once in a while."

Aubrey is incredibly good on long kicks, going 20-for-21 on kicks 50 yards and beyond in his two-year NFL career. He had a 66-yard kick — which would have matched the NFL record for longest kick — wiped out by a delay penalty, and he had a 64-yarder taken off the scoreboard when an opponent's penalty gave the Cowboys a first down. If 50-yard kicks are ordinary now, NFL kickers already have four field goals of 60-plus this year, finishing with five in each of the past two seasons.

So why the uptick, but still high-visibility misses? You might think these are exceptionally strong legs without a ton of experience, but that's not the case. Of the league's top 10 kickers, only one (the Chargers' Cameron Dicker) is younger than 28. If anything, some of the most experienced kickers are struggling the most: Tucker, Koo and the Jets' Greg Zuerlein are all missing field goals more than twice as often this season as their career average. 

The job is still hard, even for the best at the position.

"I think that's part of the challenge of playing this position — you have to go out there and make each kick its own kick," Tucker said after last week's misses. "So, compartmentalizing what happened on one kick that didn't go through and putting it away so you can go and make the most for your next opportunity. That's a challenge, and that's not necessarily an easy thing to do. 

"I still remember misses that I had 12 years ago, and I will wake up at night thinking about one that got away. But that's just the nature of playing this position. You have to treat each one like its own kick."

Fairbairn's late miss for Houston on Sunday was costly, and it overshadowed a 54-yarder he made earlier that gave him 12 field goals of 50 yards or longer this year, breaking the NFL single-season record. Aubrey has 10 such makes this year and Boswell has nine, so it's possible if not likely that three NFL kickers will have more 50-yarders than anyone in any other season in league history.

Such a record is easily lost in the circumstances of such kicks. Any field goal to win a game in the closing seconds is memorable, but even more so is any miss to lose. So the league's best kickers trudge onward, hoping their makes can outweigh the kicks that get away one way or another.

Otherwise, it's just a footnote.

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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