It wasn't long ago that most of sports media, and other legacy media, tried to ruin Harrison Butker's life and career because he's a religious Catholic.
Butker's crime was sharing those views, including that the most important thing in most people's lives should be having a family, at a commencement speech at a...Catholic university. He was swiftly condemned by many, while the NFL rushed to distance themselves from those views and reaffirm their commitment to wokeness.
Still, in a great credit to their organization, the Kansas City Chiefs stuck by him while others may have immediately cut him to avoid angering the sports media mob. And they're likely glad they did. The 31-year-old in 2025 made 33 of 38 field goal attempts with a long of 59.
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But based on his kick in Saturday's preseason game, that long might get bumped up in 2026. Just before halftime in the Chiefs game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Butker came on for a whopping 69-yard field goal try and booted it straight through the uprights.
May have been good from 72 yard, somehow.
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Butker did go on to miss another kick later in the game, something he felt was more important than even the extraordinary length. "You've got to make your kicks. Miss an extra point, miss a game-winner. That's what I care about, not the 69-yarder or whatever it was," he said after the game.
"I feel like throughout my career when I've had big kicks, it's been a struggle to finish the game or the next game. I feel like mentally I was good on that 43-yarder. It felt good off my foot. Maybe I need some more caffeine for the second half or something."
The kick, impressive as it was, is indicative of a broader problem in the NFL: it's become far, far too easy for kickers to make field goals from extreme lengths. And it's cheapening the product in an effort to artificially boost scoring.
First, some background. Scoring in the NFL has dipped periodically, culminating in 2017, when teams averaged just 21.7 points per game. The league then, began instituting rules designed to make it easier for offenses, such as the renewed focus on calling illegal contact penalties starting in the 2018 season.
That seemed to work well enough, until defenses adjusted, and in 2022 and 2023, scoring once again dipped to just 21.8 and 21.9 points per game. Sure enough, the NFL once again pushed for more illegal contact penalties, adding more defenseless receiver rules, and adding the dynamic kickoff.
That dynamic kickoff has dramatically shifted average starting field position. Teams now on average, start their drives at roughly the 31-yard-line. Touchbacks start at the 35. While the league said these changes were intended to better promote player safety, the other benefit was obvious: move the ball forward, increase scoring.
But there was yet another change that got less attention: the league allowed kickers to, shall we say, fix up, their own actual footballs. Prior to 2025, kickers and equipment staff were given the "K-balls," the specific footballs used for kicking, only a few minutes before the game. Now though? They have the opportunity to, uh, manipulate the "K-balls" at will, without scrambling to make them travel farther on game day.
Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio even brought it up after a game in 2025, saying in a news conference that current kicking stats are like the steroid era of baseball.
"You know what you guys have missed? Not just you but everybody is, we gave up a 65-yard field goal and a 58-yard field goal," he told reporters. "These kicking balls that changed this year, have drastically changed the kicking game, field goals in particular. It's almost like they need an asterisk era, like it was the live ball era, or the asterisk for those home runs that [Barry] Bonds or [Sammy] Sosa or [Mark] McGwire were hitting. The way they have changed the ball, the NFL has drastically changed the field goals."
One anonymous special teams coordinator gave an absurd quote to ESPN about the changes.
"There may be a little extra distance on the ball. I mean, could you argue that maybe there are a couple, 3, 4 yards extra on every ball? But the odds of making the kick haven't changed one bit, so I don't think it's going to change your game analytics that much."
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What? Adding three or four extra yards don't change your odds of making a kick? Of course it does! That's the difference between making a 60-yard field goal, or missing it. Or, potentially, extra power on the ball helping it stay on its trajectory just long enough to stay inside the uprights, when less yardage might have forced it left.
Enter Harrison Butker's kick.
When kickers have a realistic chance at making 70-yard field goals, i.e., Butker and Cam Little's 70-yarder in 2025, and the league average starting field position is the 31-yard line, NFL "scoring" drives are going to become even more pathetic.
It may not happen often, or be preferable, but it's conceivable that a team could gain all of 14 yards on a "normal" drive, starting after a touchback, and score points. What are we doing here?
The stats from 2025 also demonstrate the impact of the new procedure. While the league attempted fewer field goals from 50+ yards than it did in 2024, overall field goal accuracy did improve year-over-year, and most importantly, the number of 60+ yard field goal attempts and makes grew significantly.
In 2024, kickers made just four of 14 attempts from 60+. In 2025? They were 12 of 22. Overall, league average field goal attempt yardage grew to 40.5 yards, an all-time high. In 2026, it's a near-certainty we'll see those numbers grow.
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Cam Little made kicks of 67 and 68 yards. Butker clearly has 69-70 in the tank. And as coaches realize that the 45-50 yard-line is now field goal territory, we'll see those attempts increase. Maybe fans don't or won't care that teams can run six plays, gain 18 yards, and get points, but that's not good, compelling, or exciting football.
That's how desperate the NFL is to keep scoring up and avoid the era of defensive dominance. They're usually able to get away with anything, no matter how ridiculous, because fans refuse to turn even atrociously boring games off. Maybe this'll be enough to start. But probably not.
