Gerry Dulac: Steelers kicker Chris Boswell, others blazing unprecedented NFL path for field goal success

Gerry Dulac / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When he was warming up before the game in Denver and checking to see how far the ball would fly in the mile-high altitude, Steelers kicker Chris Boswell kept moving back in 5-yard increments — as he usually does — to find his limit.

First 48 yards. Then 53. Then 58. Finally, 63 yards. It wasn’t even an issue. The last attempt went soaring through the uprights and hit the retaining net. It would have been good from 70 yards.

So why didn’t Boswell go back even further and try an attempt from 70 yards?

“I was hitting it halfway up the net from 63, I didn’t have to,” Boswell said.

In Week 1, Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy was going to let kicker Brandon Aubrey attempt a 71-yard field goal before changing his mind. Sixteen years earlier, Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin sent kicker Sebastian Janikowski, who holds the NFL record of 55 field goals of at least 50 yards, on the field to attempt a 76-yard field goal in a game against the San Diego Chargers. Everyone laughed when the attempt wasn’t even close. Kiffin was fired two days later.

Nobody is laughing anymore.

Kickers are launching field goals from greater distance — and with greater frequency and accuracy — than ever before, and coaches aren’t hesitant to let them try.

It wasn’t that long ago that a 50-yard field goal was considered the gold standard for kickers. Now, that mark is 60 yards.

“When I was playing, it was make sure you make your inside-the-40 kicks,” said former kicker Michael Husted, who played with four teams during his nine-year NFL career and now works with young kickers. “Now it’s make sure you make your inside-the-55 kicks.”

After two games, NFL kickers have already converted 35 of 39 attempts from 50 yards and beyond, a staggering and unprecedented 89.7 percent. Ironically, Baltimore’s Justin Tucker, considered one of the greatest kickers of all time, has missed two of those long attempts.

Boswell has been perfect on four field goals from at least 50 yards, including a team-record three in Week 1 against the Atlanta Falcons. Houston’s Ka’imi Fairbairn is a perfect 6 of 6 from beyond 50 yards after two games.

As recently as 2006, there were only 40 field goals from at least 50 yards the entire season. That number could be eclipsed in Week 3. As recently as eight years ago, kickers converted just 56.2 percent of field goals from at least 50 yards. Last year, NFL kickers converted a record 69.5 percent of attempts from 50 and beyond.

Granted, the weather is perfect this time of year and, to paraphrase Carl Spackler from “Caddyshack,” the heavy stuff isn’t coming till later. But the league’s kickers are on their way to booting that mark right out the window.

“It’s really cool to see the position evolve the way it has,” said Husted, who runs “Husted Kicking,” a series of kicking schools, and has worked with a handful of NFL kickers. “The word ‘specialist’ is living up to its name nowadays. I work with a lot of kids in middle school who give up every other sport to focus on kicking. It goes to show how specialized and evolved the position has become.

“When I was in high school, there was one kicking camp in the whole country. Now there’s one on every corner.”

Kickers have become so good that coaches are tending to take the all-but-guaranteed three points rather than risk fourth-down conversions. Last week alone, there were 73 field goals, an NFL record for a single week. That came on the heels of 68 field goals in Week 1, the third most ever in a single week.

After two weeks, there have been more field goals (141) than touchdowns (136), the first time that has happened in NFL history. That’s because kickers have become so good they’re redefining what is considered acceptable field-goal range.

New Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith discovered that in the season opener when Boswell hit field goals of 57, 51 and 56 yards among the team-record six he converted in Atlanta.

“I’ve been around a lot of great kickers, and this isn’t a slight to anybody, but Boz is different than anybody I’ve been around,” Smith said. “I was actually shocked that first drive in Atlanta because I was like, ‘Damn, I thought we were going to have to punt,’ and (Mike Tomlin) called Boz out there. That was pretty impressive.”

Boswell is one of 19 kickers with a minimum of four attempts who has not missed a field goal this season. He and Aubrey are tied with the most field goals after two games (8). Three other kickers — Fairbairn, Washington’s Austin Seibert and San Francisco 49ers Jake Moody, who converted all 148 extra-point attempts in college — have converted all seven of their attempts.

Field-goal conversion percentages have risen steadily since 2016, going from 56.2 percent eight years ago to 69.5 percent in 2023. Last year, 11 teams converted more than 90 percent of their attempts, compared to five in 2016. Boswell has converted better than 90 percent of attempts in six of his previous nine seasons.

“I think when you do get in that area, when you are in field goal range, you don’t want to take a negative play or a sack,” quarterback Justin Fields said. “That’s where a lot of teams tend to bring pressure. I think the biggest thing is being smart in those areas because Boz is really good from out deep and can knock those kicks down.”

When Indianapolis Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt retired in 2006, he was the league’s all-time leader in field-goal accuracy (86.5). Less than two decades later, he has dropped to ninth among kickers with at least 100 attempts.

The league has tried to challenge kickers by moving the extra-point attempt back to the 15-yard line, creating a 33-yard attempt. That rule was adopted in 2016 after the league experimented with the change in the Pro Bowl. They also experimented with shrinking the width of the goalpost from 18 feet, 6 inches to 14 feet, but never implemented the change in the regular season.

“Not many people tried it back then,” Husted said, referring to 50-yard attempts. “When I was coming into the league (1993), if you missed a field goal, the ball was placed at the line of scrimmage. Now it’s the spot of the kick.

“They were thinking that would make coaches hesitate. Now it’s routine for these guys, and it’s impressive to see.”