In the first seventy years of its existence, the NFL saw two successful field goals from over sixty yards.
Dallas Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey has hit two this season alone.
Aubrey, a former professional soccer player who was once drafted by Toronto FC of the MLS, tied a franchise record when he converted from 65 yards against the Baltimore Ravens last month. His attempt, which sailed between the uprights with several meters to spare, was just a meter away Justin Tucker’s all-time NFL recordhis opposite number on the day, which was set in 2021. Aubrey punched through another 51 yards later in the same game.
And Aubrey isn’t the only NFL kicker starring in the early weeks of the new season. In Week 4, Joey Slye of the New England Patriots hit one from 63 yards. Through the first two weeks of the season, 39 field goals were attempted from more than 50 yards. Only four missed. That 89.7% success rate was the highest during the first two weeks of a campaign since 2008, when only eleven field goals of more than 50 yards were attempted. As it stands through Week 5, not factoring in Monday night’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the New Orleans Saints, the overall league-wide success rate of 86.3% is the second-highest average in history of the NFL.
So what’s behind this recent boom?
John Carney, a Super Bowl champion with the New Orleans Saints and now owner of Carney Coaching, thinks technological advances have played a key role.
“We have a little guy,” he says, raising his iPhone. “That is very beneficial. Anyone can go out on the field, set this up and get a really good video on how to solve the problem. Perhaps their contact has been lost. Maybe their swing path is off. They can solve problems very quickly.
“In the past I rarely had anyone available to record me. And when I did, it was a camcorder, VHS. Then you had to go back and plug that into a TV. The quality was not very good. You may be missing the frame of the foot hitting the ball that you needed to refine your contact.
“And there is more quality coaching available now than in the past. More former NFL special teams players and coaches have made themselves available to coach punting and kicking at the high school and college levels. That was a great feeder system to make sure young kickers get the right mechanics and good instruction… Guys aren’t forced to go to a field with a bag of balls and figure it out for themselves.
There is also the element of trust. Because kickers have demonstrated the ability to convert at high percentages over increasingly longer distances, coaches are more willing to focus on long-range field goals as a way to put points on the board.
“Ten years ago, there were a handful of kickers who could kick the ball the same distance,” says Stephen Hauschka, who won Super Bowl XLVIII with the Seattle Seahawks and set an NFL record for most consecutive field goals made from more than 50 yards . . “But we see two things now: coaches are willing to go for these kicks, and then the kickers prove themselves.
“The bar has been raised. It’s like the four-minute mile. Once it was broken, a number of people broke it. The same goes for spades. Coaches see that it is possible to make kicks from those over 55, and they do it and are rewarded for it.
“The kicker has to be one of the five most important positions in the game. A good kicker can get you a handful of games a season. When you see a guy like Brandon Aubrey raising the bar and redefining what’s possible there, and the Cowboys trust him to do that, I see the value of a kicker increasing.”
Carney agrees. “I think the mindset of coaches has changed: ‘We have a very talented place kicker on our team; give him that chance,” he says.
Improvements in practice, athleticism and technology are evident in kicking in place. With annual rule changes, upgraded equipment and a sharper focus on player welfare, today’s NFL is barely recognizable from the grainy images of the early gridiron; Comparing, for example, the wide receivers or quarterbacks of 2024 to their counterparts from 50 years ago is an exercise in futility, so much has football changed.
But the job of a kicker in today’s NFL is barely distinguishable in approach and optics from kicking in decades past — at least since the goalposts were moved from the goal line to the end line in 1974. And amid the jargon-filled world of modern analytics, field goal distances and conversion rates are as easily digestible as any sporting metric you can find.
“Just as we broke all these world records at this year’s Summer Olympics, it will happen again thanks to advances in coaching, training methods, technology and sports science,” Carney said. “It helps athletes improve at a light-speed level.”
But Hauschka cautions those dizzy over early-season statistics to be cautious. Experience has taught him that as the year progresses, the kicker’s job becomes more difficult. He expects a decline, at least to some extent, by the time winter arrives.
“It’s early in the season,” Hauschka adds. “The weather is good. Boys’ legs are fresh, their minds are fresh. Towards the end of the season things get more difficult.”
Yet there is little doubt that the NFL has reached levels over the past decade that would have been unthinkable in previous decades. So how much further – literally and figuratively – can NFL kickers go?
“The Cowboys are kicking a dome, so they can do that all year round,” Hauschka said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the record [for longest field goal] broken this year.”
Carney, who worked with Aubrey early in his transition from football to place football, also expects records to be broken in the near future.
“He’s a great talent,” he said of the Dallas kicker. “What he does is incredible. The way he’s going, he could be the greatest kicker in NFL history. There are some great legs in there. I’m excited to see who comes out and breaks that record. It’s exciting for the fans and great for the game.
“You want to see Babe Ruth hit that record-breaking home run. We may see a 70-year-old this year.”
