Reduce the Importance of the Foot in Football | The American Spectator

Never has the “foot” been more important to football.

Unlike its international peer, soccer (called “football” everywhere but here), in which the whole sport revolves around the foot, the American game has considered that lower appendage something of an afterthought.

Our game is a sport of running and throwing and blocking and tackling, with the foot playing a subsidiary role. Lately, however, the foot has become increasingly integral to team success.

And the foot is killing football — or, more precisely, balls propelled by the foot — that is, field goals, are killing football.

The three-point play has been an integral part of the game ever since Jim Thorpe was dropkicking a much-rounder football through the uprights for the Carlisle Indians. But in the modern game, it was always of mixed emotional pedigree. Sure, a long one to win a game was thrilling, but many of the others — the ones from 30 yards in — were considered consolation prizes. The offense couldn’t stick it into the end zone for six points, so the team “settles” for three.

Anything over 40 yards was considered significant, and 50-plus-yard attempts were reserved for last-second desperation. Indeed, a mere 34 years ago, in 1991, only 11 field goals were made in the NFL from 50-plus yards (out of 28 attempts). As recently as 2009, the numbers were only 14 made out of 24 attempted.

Now, 50-yarders are tantamount to “chip shots.” In 2024, NFL kickers converted 74 out of 97 field goal attempts from 50 yards or longer. That number has already been eclipsed in 2025 — 77 out of 108 (71.3 percent made) — and we’re not yet halfway into the season. From 55 yards, 28 have already been made this season.

From 60 yards or over, NFL kickers are four for seven so far this season (57 percent). The kicker from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Chase McLaughlin, kicked a 65-yarder in week four (longest outdoor kick ever). The guy from Dallas, Brandon Aubrey, knocked one through from 64 yards against the New York Giants that would have cleared the crossbar from 74. A 70-yarder off the boot of one of these guys, or other select kickers, is a not a matter of if but when. As for 80-yarders … well, give them a couple of years.

Why the profusion of long field goals?

For one thing, as kicking becomes more important to team success, better athletes are drawn to the skill. This, plus improved specialized coaching and training methods, has spawned the explosion of kicking accuracy and long-distance success.

The other thing is the ball. Back in 1999, the NFL, alarmed that kickers were manipulating the balls in creative ways, including by sticking them in microwave ovens and saunas to make them more pliable and easier to kick, started monitoring kicking balls. League officials were tasked with preparing the balls exclusively, giving kickers very little pre-game exposure to the balls they were to kick.

Rules have been relaxed over the years until, for this season, teams were given 60 special kicking balls (K balls) before the year, and can prepare three for each game, to be approved by the referees. A single ball can be used in three games before it is retired. The teams cannot stick the balls in microwaves or saunas but may rub them down with towels and a special league-approved brush.

Jets kicker Nick Folk told the Associated Press it was a little like breaking in a new baseball glove. “We get to kind of do just like quarterbacks get whatever they want to do to the ball, as long as it looks like a football and the logo’s still there and all that stuff.… It’s a very welcoming thing to be able to kind of look at a ball and be like: ‘All right, I want to kick this one this week.’”

Also, the weather might be a factor. It’s still warm out, and balls go farther in warm temperatures than in cold.

That’s why it’s happening. Here’s why it’s bad.

For one thing, all these field goals detract from the exciting elements of the game. Placekicking is a singular skill not required by 95 or so percent of the other players and is anomalous to the ebb and flow of football. Games should be decided by running, blocking, throwing, catching, and tackling, not by an ectomorph straight from soccer practice trotting onto the field to decide a game with one swing of his leg.

The length of the long ones — the 50- and 60-yarders — radically changes end-of-game scenarios, and not for the better. In close games, teams have for the past few decades consciously tried to score near the end of games so as to leave as little time on the clock as possible for the opposition to score in return. Two minutes used to be a challenging amount of time to mount a drive and score at the end of a game. Two minutes is now an eternity. Sheesh! Thirty seconds is an eternity in today’s game.

Consider this scenario: Team A scores a touchdown or field goal to go ahead by three or fewer points with 20 seconds to go. Team B needs a field goal to win or tie. Team A kicks off and Team B returns the ball to the 30-yard-line, which is the average return so far this season. That ball is two first downs and change — 27 yards — away from a 60-yard field goal attempt. That’s one pass play, or two, or maybe three if Team B has retained its time-outs.

With the new kickoff rules, that starting position could be even better. If a kickoff goes out of bounds or lands short of the “landing zone” (between the 20-yard line and the goal line), the receiving team gets it at its own 40-yard line. That team must make 12 yards to attempt a 65-yard field goal. That’s one play.

It’s too much. The reward is too great. It cheapens the score made by the team mounting the game-winning drive if, in one play, the opposing team can position itself to outright win the game, albeit with a 60-plus-yard kick.

And finally, field goals are boring. A snap, a hold, a kick. Rinse and repeat. The highlight shows are filled with clips of field goals because field goals are winning so many games. Nobody wants to watch that.

Remedies? The league could monkey with the kicking balls or go back to restricting kicker access to them, but using different balls for kicking seems wrong in the first place. That seems not a good remedy.

Cinch up the goal posts? Stadium limitations preclude moving the goal posts back, so a remedy would be narrowing the uprights. They could also raise the crossbar. A radical solution would be devaluing the field goal. Make it a two-point play.

The NFL is not averse to changing the kicking game. They moved the extra point from the two-yard-line to the 15 a decade ago. They totally rewrote the kickoff rules a few years back.

They should fix the field goal situation, too, because all these long field goals are killing football.

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