Part 12, ST: The kicking revolution is here

What's a 60-yard kick anymore? Bob McGinn's series concludes with a look a third of the game that's changing before our eyes. (And, yes, he ranks the best long snappers in this year's draft class.)

Apr 08, 2026

∙ Paid

This is the 42^nd year, and the fifth at Go Long, in which Bob McGinn has written a position-by-position series previewing the NFL draft. Previously, it appeared in the Green Bay Press-Gazette (1985-’91), the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (1992-2017), BobMcGinnFootball.com (2018-’19) and The Athletic (2020-’21). Until 2014, many personnel people were quoted by name. The series reluctantly adopted an all-anonymous format in 2015 at the request of many scouts. Listed times in the 40-yard dash reflect the average of hand-held clockings from the combine and pro day. Electronic times from the combine aren’t compatible with most pro days and therefore weren’t utilized.

Last of 12 parts: specialists.

By Bob McGinn

Tom Dempsey’s 63-yard field goal in November 1970 was the kind of event you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing.

A freshman at the University of Michigan, I was studying that Sunday afternoon in my double room on the third floor of Adams House at West Quad, a brick-and-limestone all-male dorm completed in 1939. It was mid-afternoon, and knowing that the Lions were playing in New Orleans I decided to walk downstairs to the communal TV room and check the score.

Seconds remained. Detroit had just taken a 17-16 lead. The Saints completed a pass, the clock stopped at the Sugar Bowl and out trotted Dempsey to attempt a kick none of us ever dreamed was possible.

At the time, the longest field goal in NFL history was 56 yards. That record had stood for 17 years.

Dempsey had been born with a stub for a right hand as well as a deformed kicking foot. He was 23 years old. There must have been 40 or 50 of us so-called “Quaddies” sitting, kneeling or standing around a console television with what I seem to think was a black-and-white screen.

A lot of the students, from southeast Michigan, were born and raised as Lions fans. We thought this cross-country attempt was a joke.

Well, Dempsey didn’t just make it as time expired. He crushed it. “It might’ve gone 70 yards if it had to,” the Lions quarterback, Greg Landry, told beat man Jack Saylor of the Detroit Free Press.

The West Quad basement fell silent. Then some guys angrily knocked over a few of the chipped and battered dark brown wooden chairs on their way out the door. And we repaired to our rooms knowing we had witnessed history but not sure what it might mean for the future of field-goal kicking.

Frankly, not much. The next 60-plus field goal (exactly 60 yards) was made by Cleveland’s Steve Cox in 1984. It wasn’t until 1998 that Dempsey’s record was tied by Denver’s Jason Elam. It wasn’t broken until Matt Prater of Denver connected from 64 in 2013.

The Packers had outstanding kickers in Chris Jacke, Ryan Longwell and Mason Crosby during most of the 33 seasons in which I covered every game. When I got off the beat after the 2016 season, the team’s longest field goal was 58 yards by Crosby.

“In our game now, if you can’t hit from 55 or even 60, you’re kind of like a dinosaur,” said an NFL personnel man as he surveyed the crop of kickers available in this draft.

Look at the numbers. As recently as 1999 and 2002, no 60-plus field goals were even attempted. From 2003-’20, 90 were tried but only 19 were made, or 21.1%.

It all changed in 2021, and even more dramatically in 2025. The 60-plus numbers from 2021-’24 were 18 for 46 (39.1%). Then, after the NFL relaxed the “K-ball” rule before the 2025 season so kickers could bring their own gradually broken-in balls to the game, they made 12 of 22 for 54.6%.

Sixteen kickers had at least one attempt from the 60 and beyond last season. The Cowboys’ Brandon Aubree went three for four, extending his 60-plus record makes to six. Jacksonville’s Cam Little hit from 68, breaking the record of 66 set by Baltimore’s Justin Tucker in 2021, before cashing in from 67.

In August, Little connected from 70 yards in an exhibition game.

This isn’t regarded as much more than an average year for kickers. Yet, the top four all have the capability to strike from 60 and beyond, according to one special-teams coach.

“You’re at an advantage when you at least have an opportunity to do that,” the coach said. “Most of these now, honestly, do. It used to be, ‘My God, the guy made a 50-yard field goal.’ Now 60 is the old 50.”

Dempsey’s moon shot led to Saylor’s memorable lede to his Free Press game story: “Not all the miracles happen on 34^th Street.” Dempsey kicked for another decade but never made another one longer than 54.

As Saylor made the rounds in Detroit’s disconsolate locker room, coach after coach and player after player cursed their fate. “Bobby Thomson’s home run … (but) nothing compares to it,” murmured the veteran linebacker Wayne Walker.

The head coach, Joe Schmidt, said, “You could put him out there 20 times and he couldn’t do it again.” Lions kicker Errol Mann set the figure even higher at 200. “There was no way,” said Mann. “Not the way he was kicking before the game. He just wasn’t hitting it that good.”

But hit it good Dempsey did. Today, so many are following in his footsteps.

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Part 12, ST: The kicking revolution is here

What's a 60-yard kick anymore? Bob McGinn's series concludes with a look a third of the game that's changing before our eyes. (And, yes, he ranks the best long snappers in this year's draft class.)

By Bob McGinn

KICKERS

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