The number must be an anomaly, one of those statistical improbabilities that will forever glare strange in the record books, because what other explanation can there be? Why else would NFL kickers suddenly miss a collective 12 extra-points on a single day as they did last Sunday? Never before had something like this happened, not even after the league moved the ball back from the two- to the 15-yard line in 2015. What made this weekend different from al the others before it?
“It was a coincidence,” former NFL kicker Michael Husted told the Guardian on Tuesday.
Then he laughed.
“Now for a better answer,” he said. “Blair Walsh.”
For four seasons until 10 January 2016, Walsh was a dependable kicker for the Minnesota Vikings. In fact, he was more than dependable, hitting 85% of his field goals and all but five of his extra-points. But that was before the wildcard game against Seattle when, in sub-zero cold, he missed a simple 27-yard game-winning field goal that was shorter than an extra-point. The explanation for his miss was simple: his foot caught the laces and the ball skipped off to the left. And yet in the days after the loss, nobody much wanted to hear about laces or cold. Walsh had choked.
He hasn’t recovered. In this season’s first 10 games he missed four field goals and four extra-points. Finally, the Vikings had enough. Last Wednesday, they released him. When they did, you could almost feel the shiver sliding through the NFL’s most insecure fraternity.
“I’m sure that was in the back of every kicker’s head this weekend,” Husted said.
If I miss this extra-point, will I become Blair Walsh too?
Will I be cut next?
No position in football requires less thinking than place kicker and yet it is the position where players think too much. Since kickers have no plays to memorize, they are not issued playbooks. They do little more in practice than mingle with the punter on the other side of the field, until the coach calls for a special teams drill. On game days, they stand alone with nothing more to think about than how challenging it is to kick a ball through two metal poles in front of 80,000 people in the stadium and millions more watching on television. And since they are not issued playbooks and therefore possess no secret institutional knowledge, they are – as Blair Walsh learned last week – dispensable.
“You are definitely seeing choking,” said Michael Lardon, a San Diego sports psychologist who has worked with NFL kickers. “They are getting tight.”
When the NFL moved the extra-point back, they hoped to introduce more excitement by challenging the ceremonial adding of a point to a touchdown. The problem is that even with the additional yardage everybody perceives the extra-point to still be routine. Fans, celebrating the touchdown, barely watch the extra-point. The telecasts sometimes forget to show them. They assume the kick will be made. Until it isn’t.
“It’s like a two-foot putt in the PGA has now become a four-foot putt,” Lardon said. “You shouldn’t miss it but it’s a tougher putt.”
This is when the kicker begins to think. He knows the extra-point is harder to make than before, but he also knows that few understand or care. Doubt hits. He gets anxious. He panics.
“The pressure gets you out of your rhythm,” Lardon said.
Husted, who runs an academy called Husted Kicking, works with several pro kickers including Jacksonville’s Jason Myers, an accurate long kicker who nonetheless missed seven extra-points last season. At an especially low point Husted called him and asked: “Are you approaching them like 33-yard field goals or are you kicking not to miss an extra-point?”
“I think I’m kicking not to miss,” Myers told Husted.
“You need to think you are kicking a field goal,” Husted said,
If only it was that simple. The 24 men who kicked for NFL teams on Sunday should have been able to walk on the field without a thought about their football mortality. The name Blair Walsh shouldn’t have entered their minds. But chances are it probably did, only adding to the fragility of an already tenuous occupation.
“As I’m lining up for a kick am I thinking: ‘I don’t want to miss like Blair Walsh did?’” asked Husted, who kicked for four teams over nine seasons. “No. But I’m sure it is rattling around somewhere in the back of the kickers’ minds.”
Sure, Sunday was likely an odd coincidence. It was windy in several NFL stadiums, though that doesn’t explain the misses that came indoors. And since most of the botched kicks came in the early games that day, it negates the idea that the league’s kickers were letting everyone else’s failure creep into their heads. They wouldn’t have known about all the misses until after their games. It’s not like the new extra-point line has had that bad an impact on kickers. They are still hitting 94% of their PATs since the start of last season.
What will be interesting to watch is how Sunday’s kicking disaster affects kickers this week, starting with Thursday’s Thanksgiving games. Will doubt slither under their helmets? Will they be kicking not to miss instead of looking at the extra-points as easy 33-yard field goals?
“If all of a sudden you start to think: ‘My brothers, my peers are missing extra-points,’ does that affect you? It can,” Lardon said. “The strong-minded that can distill that will say: ‘I’m just kicking an extra-point.’”
But who can be strong-minded, standing on the sideline knowing soon they will be alone in a giant stadium with everyone watching, wondering if they are watching the next Blair Walsh?
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