Mike Florio ,
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Kickers are making longer and longer field goals. Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio has an explanation for the sudden uptick in ridiculously long three-pointers.
“You know what you guys have missed?” Fangio said during a Tuesday press conference, unprompted by any question. “Not just you but everybody is. 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. 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.”
Previously, teams got three brand new kicking balls within 60 to 90 minutes before a given game started. As of 2025 (and as Steelers kicker Chris Boswell explained it to PFT after hitting a 60-yard field goal to beat the Jets in Week 1), teams get all 60 kicking balls to start the year, with unlimited time to break them in. Then, each can be used in up to three games.
Fangio basically said the same thing on Tuesday.
“In years past, the officials would rub them down or other people would rub them down and you play with them,” Fangio said. “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.”
Whether it’s Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey or Bucs kicker Chase McLaughlin or Boswell or another big-legged kicker, it feels like a 70-yard field goal is inevitable. (Already, Jaguars kicker Cam Little hit a 70-yard field goal in the preseason.)
Fangio was asked whether the K ball dynamic changes the way he calls defenses.
“ Yeah,” he said. “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 15 homers to 50 in one year.”
It does indeed change everything. Especially with the latest tweaks to the kickoff rules, which can make it very easy for a team to get in range for an extra-long field goal attempt that has gone from being a fart in the wind to not much more than a chip shot.
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