Kicking field goals from beyond 50 yards has become so easy for NFL kickers that making them is virtually automatic. Except for the best kicker ever.
Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, who for many years was the best kicker the NFL had ever seen, is now the only kicker in the league who has missed multiple field goals from beyond 50 yards.
Tucker is 0-for-2 on 50-yard field goals this season. The rest of the NFL is 35-for-37.
What’s wrong with Tucker? He says he’s not worried about it — even though he also went just 1-for-5 from 50 yards and beyond last season.
“Trying to overanalyze or dwell on a mistake or a performance that is not up to our collective standard, that’s not going to do us any good,” Tucker said. “What is going to help us is continuing to trust the process, and just come together as a team, and get to work. This is a long season. We’re 0-2, but we have every reason to be confident. We can clean up some things. I think everybody in here would say the real accountability is taking the burden of blame on yourself so somebody else doesn’t have to. And everybody else in this locker room is built just like that. I think we’re going to be just fine. We’re going to be a really good football team.”
Tucker aside, however, field goals from beyond 50 yards have become shockingly easy. League-wide, kickers are making 90 percent of their field goals from 50 yards and longer, which is unprecedented in NFL history. As temperatures get colder and more games are affected by bad weather, those numbers will probably go down a little. But what we’re seeing right now represents a revolution in kicking in the NFL, with kickers getting so good that they’re redefining what constitutes field goal range.
