When Cody Parkey entered Soldier Field in Chicago on January 7, 2019, he could have become a hero. His team, the Bears, were just one point behind at home in the first round of the NFL playoffs against the Philadelphia Eagles. The 26-year-old should shoot a field goal from 43 yards ten seconds from time, the three points would bring Chicago to the next round. What followed should go down in NFL history as a "double doink".
Parkey started and carried the football through the night sky. After 43 yards, about 39 yards, the ball hit the left inner post, then fell down on the crossbar and bounced back from there into the field. No field goal, no points - Chicago was eliminated, the season over.
Cody Parkey's would-be game-winning FG hits the crossbar twice sending the Eagles to the Divisional Round. #PHIvsCHI #NFLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/mchSudQfLL
- NFL (@NFL) January 7, 2019The fans on the net reacted with ridicule, Parkey's miss was the template for numerous memes. In partly tasteless comments, various consequences were demanded, including the dismissal of the 27-year-olds. In March, the Bears separated from Parkey.
Chicago's kicker casting
During the non-play time, head coach Matt Nagy staged a stinging call that some consider crazy: no fewer than nine kickers have been summoned to the Bears' training camp.
In this casting, among other things, the kickers had to shoot a field goal in total silence in front of the whole team and the coach from 43 yards - exactly the distance from which Parkey had fired. Mike Westhoff, an assistant coach with decades of NFL experience, described the process as "ridiculous." Not that he would not look at several kickers - "but let nine people compete in a heap against one another? That's a farce."
The winner of the casting was Eddy Piñeiro, who was one of the best kickers in college football, but had not yet completed an NFL game. And Piñeiro delivered: On the second day of the new season, he shot the Bears in the expiring time with a field goal of 53 yards to victory in the Denver Broncos.
On average always better, but not currently
Fieldgoals more than 50 yards away are especially difficult. In the past season, the hit rate was 63.8 percent, while it was far more than 90 percent in trials under 40 yards. In a long-term comparison, the kickers in the NFL have improved significantly. As recently as the 1990s, only 45 percent of all attempts from at least 50 yards were successful.
But in the first half of this season, there is actually something like a crisis among the kickers: After eight matchdays, there were already 120 misses, Fieldgoal and extra point attempts added together. That is a new record.
The crisis affects newcomers as well as veterans. Kicker legend Adam Vinatieri of the Indianapolis Colts is currently at 73.3 percent this season, the worst in his 23-year career in the NFL. After Vinatieri had shot two field goals and three extra points in the first two games, he thought aloud about a resignation. The Colts convinced the 46-year-old from whereabouts, last Sunday he thanked them against Denver with a game-winning goal from 51 yards, two seconds from time.
It lacks the recognition
An NFL kicker is supposed to shoot an approximately 400-gram, leathery egg half-way between two posts 50 yards away, just 5.63 yards apart-while a bunch of muscular men rush toward him to prevent that. In wind and weather, with tens of thousands of hooting spectators.
Patrick Smith / AFP
The audience, the defenders, the weather - to hit a field goal is much more difficult than the TV images suggest
Respect for this achievement is only in moderation. Rarely do the kickers participate in the team training, many teams do not even have their own kicking coach. It is simply expected that they appear to the game and meet. There are usually cheers from the fans only at a decisive Fieldgoal shortly before the end of the game. A hit is a matter of course, a miss equal as a mistake. Whoever shoots more often, is quickly perceived as a dork who does not do his job properly.
Accordingly fast begins the search for better solutions. Just last matchday, three kickers (Matt Bryant of the Atlanta Falcons, Mike Nugent of the New England Patriots and Chase McLaughlin of the Los Angeles Chargers) were fired after missing a shot.
Eddy Piñeiro found himself in a similar position to Cody Parkey on Sunday nine months earlier against the Chargers: home game, the final action of the match, one point behind. This time it was not a co-game and the ball was two yards closer to the goal than Parkey's attempt from 43 yards. Piñeiro missed and Chicago lost the game.
It was Piñeiro's third penalty in 15 attempts, which gives a good 80 percent hit rate. But that did not matter, the audience poured their malice on the 24 -year-old, old Parkey memes were rehashed.
Kicker in the NFL remains one of the loneliest and most thankless jobs in the world.
