Kickers are drilling field goals from further out than ever this season, thanks to recent NFL rule tweaks. That surge has Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio questioning the record books. With Justin Tucker’s 66-yarder suddenly looking beatable, Fangio says today’s kicking marks deserve an asterisk.
How Have the NFL’s New Kicking Ball Rules Changed the Game?
Before this season, officials issued only three kicking balls to each team, usually 60 to 90 minutes before a game started. Now, teams receive all 60 balls at the start of the year and have unlimited time to break them in. Each ball can then be used in up to three games.
Fangio believes this change is a major reason we see longer and longer field goals, highlighted by Jaleel McLaughlin’s record-setting 65-yard FG against the Eagles on Sunday.
“We gave up a 65-yard field goal and a 58-yard field goal [against the Buccaneers]. These kicking balls that they changed this year have drastically changed the kicking game, field goals in particular. So it’s almost like they need an asterisk here,” Fangio said in a press conference.
“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’ve changed the ball. The NFL, the kicking ball has drastically changed the field goals.”
McLaughlin shattered his personal long by more than eight yards, a difference of 24 feet. He had never hit a field goal longer than 57 yards, and now he booted the second-longest field goal in NFL history, which also stands as the longest outdoor field goal ever.
Fangio, an avid baseball fan, compared the situation to Brady Anderson of the Orioles, who went from 16 homers to 50 in one year in 1996. It was before McGwire and Sosa started launching homers at record-breaking rates, and Fangio suggests a similar run could be coming in the NFL.
“In years past, the officials would rub them down or other people would rub them down and you play with them,” Fangio explained. “Now the balls are in house all week and they kick those balls that they’ve had, and nobody else touches them. The guy in Dallas is going to hit a 70-plus yarder this year. You can just book it.”
Fangio’s prediction was already validated in the preseason when Jaguars kicker Cam Little connected on a 70-yard field goal, and he admits that changing the kicking game would make him alter his defensive strategy.
“I mean who thought they would hit a 65-yarder the other day? So it’s drastically changed the game, the kicking game and the field goal. Guys have longer range than they used to. Kind of like Brady Anderson with the Orioles and he went from 16 homers to 50 in one year.”
With these new conditions, the NFL is seeing kickers push the boundaries of what was previously thought possible, and it’s only a matter of time before Tucker’s record is broken.
