Hard brushes, walls, floors: Kickers share secrets behind NFL’s long-distance field goal revolution

NFL kicking isn’t entering its steroid era, but a new generation of athletes and an obscure rule change have shifted what’s possible for the long-neglected special teams stalwarts.

A 60-yard field goal is no longer a rare occurrence in the NFL. There have been 49 successful kicks from that distance in league history — more than half have come since 2020. 

This season alone, kickers have combined for 10 made field goals from 60 yards or longer — including a record-setting 68-yarder by Cam Little of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

In Dallas, Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey has made the absurd look routine. He’s converted six of nine attempts from 60 yards away or longer. From 1960 to 2008, every other NFL kicker combined to convert 6 of 82 from that distance.

Aubrey, a former professional soccer player, added three long boots to his tally this year.

“There’s no reason guys won’t be able to hit 60-yard field goals consistently for a long time to come,” Aubrey told The Athletic earlier this season. “I think 70 will be the new 60.”

Highly specialized athletes like Aubrey are partly responsible for the NFL’s new kicking reality. Specialty schools and training programs have helped whittle the league’s kickers into Terminator-like machines. Every movement, from the wind-up to the swing of the leg and the follow-through, is carefully analyzed and perfected.

But the NFL fanned the flames of its special teams revolution this offseason. 

At the annual league meetings, the owners approved a change that gave teams access to the kicking balls long before they’d be used on the field. Previously, teams had 90 minutes before the games to adjust the balls to their liking.

Every franchise now has 60 “k-balls” to use throughout the season. They can be conditioned or prepared in almost any fashion.

The rulebook specifies that the ball should remain shaped as a “prolate spheroid”; it must remain the same size and can’t have any “corregations” — parallel grooves in the leather. Beyond that, it’s open season on the pigskin.

“We just get to work on it a little bit longer than we used to,” Eagles special teams coordinator Michael Clay told reporters earlier this season. “We used to only have an hour, now we get the whole week to fill it in, and the kickers get to pick what ball they feel pretty good about.”

Teams can use the same balls for three games, though they have to pass an inspection by the referees before each outing.

The preparation process is intensive, according to Commanders punter Tress Way. Every special teams ace has different preferences that a team’s equipment staff works to honor. It is not always a pretty process.

“A lot of it has to do with those brushes, where you take the edge of a hard brush and you’re scrubbing down, trying to get those seams going down and trying to get those little bumps off as well,” Way said. “It’s a lot of things — breaking it in with that brush, using walls, using floors — things like that to try and get it how we like it.”

The process is different in each NFL facility based on the unique preferences of its specialists. Commanders long snapper Tyler Ott has full discretion regarding the top of the ball — he needs a particular grip to fire it back on punts and field goals.

But Way and kicker Jake Moody worked together to meld preferences on the rear of the ball, which they call the bladder. They want it as thin as possible, minimizing the amount of leather between their foot and the air sac inside the ball.

“Four or five years ago, they would take them right out of the box. They couldn’t take the wax off, so they’re slippery as hell and hard as rocks,” former Arizona Cardinals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians said on “Inside the NFL.” “As you start kicking, that bladder gets softer and softer. You hit it really good; it’s going to go 60 or 70.”

The difference between balls can be easily noticed by eagle-eyed viewers. In a game against the Baltimore Ravens earlier this year, Chicago Bears kicker Cairo Santos rushed onto the field to attempt a 58-yard field goal. They didn’t have time to switch from the typical game ball to the specialized K-ball.

Santos — who has converted every other attempt from more than 50 yards out this season — watched his kick peter off and die, bouncing through the end zone well short of the uprights.

The kick could be seen as proof of the NFL’s kicking experiment — a new policy on kicking balls has created an artificially inflated range.

The result has left some coaches, like Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, comparing this year’s kicking stats to baseball’s steroid era.

“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. …” Fangio said earlier this season. “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.”

NFL broadcasters and leaders in the league office aren’t complaining. Scoring has reached its highest level since 2020 — kickers are at least partially responsible. Teams are averaging 1.7 field goals per game — trailing only last season for the NFL record.

Credit can’t be solely given to the adjusted balls, Way and other special teamers have said. Big-legged specialists like Aubrey and Little would be setting records in any era.

“It might help like, two to five yards, depending,” Way said. “But guys still got to play outside in the cold and the wind and the rain. … I truly believe kickers are just getting that good. Snappers are getting better each year. It’s just turning into a high-end operation.”