Football purists are going to nuke me over this one. I actually consider myself a pigskin traditionalist and have been watching the game my entire life and played it (admittedly, not at a particularly high level) all four years of high school. I absolutely loved being part of a football team.
I adore the game and just about everything about it (except when the NFL tries to sell “woke”).
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But I’m not a fan of the field goal.
There, I said it.
After hours of blocking, running, tackling, passing – brutish, hard-fought contests that define careers and teams for generations – the outcome often comes down to whether some guy can kick a ball straight. It feels removed from all the struggles we just watched for the last three hours.
Did the infamous Scott Norwood missed kick in ’91 with eight seconds left in Super Bowl XXV really signify that the New York Giants had won a Super Bowl -- or did it just mean that the Buffalo Bills had lost it? Do those Giants ever question whether they’re really champions, or do they realize those Bills had essentially won the game except for what is often considered a formality?
The kick has gone down in infamy, known now notoriously as “Wide Right.”
It seems to me akin to determining the outcome of the contest by whether some guy can suddenly show up and make a 20-foot putt.
Unfortunately for fans of the Bills, history repeated itself Sunday as, with two minutes remaining in the game and the Kansas City Chiefs leading Buffalo 27-24, poor Bills kicker Tyler Bass lined up a 44-yard field goal attempt that would have tied the game. The kick, into the tricky winds of New York, sailed to the right in a cruel repeat of history.
"The two most dreaded words in Buffalo have surfaced again," Nantz said on the broadcast.
Chiefs beat the Bills. 27-24. Kicker pulled a Norwood.
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 22, 2024
"Wide. Right. The two most dreaded words in Buffalo have surfaced again."pic.twitter.com/HfEunAPZc6
Call me a sucker, but watching Bass after the game hurt my heart; all I could imagine was my own son being in a position such as that. My kid was a basketball standout, not a football player, but I can only envision him missing the crucial free throw at the end of a contest and having to live with it -- forever.
Bills kicker Tyler Bass says snap and hold were good but he should have aimed more left to play left to right wind. He mentioned a few times: “I got to be better.” pic.twitter.com/zMeSZx16gm
— Cameron Wolfe (@CameronWolfe) January 22, 2024
I get it -- sports are sports, and there are winners and losers, and losing sucks. I’m not advocating for the abolishment of the field goal or the extra point – they’re part of the game, and you have to execute. I’m just saying it can be hard to watch when a young man is forever branded as an utter failure for missing one foot to the right.
I was at Shea Stadium in 1986 when Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner flubbed a routine ground ball and set the stage for the NY Mets' stunning World Series victory, and although I was a NYC resident and crazed Mets fan at the time and was screaming in happiness along with the rest of the crowd, in my later years I felt bad for him. Buckner had a solid 22-year MLB career, yet he will always be remembered – and ridiculed – for that one mistake.
Today In 1986: Boston #RedSox first baseman Bill Buckner commits what many consider to be the most famous error in baseball history vs. the New York #Mets in Game 6 of the World Series at Shea Stadium. (Classic call by Vin Scully) #MLB #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/UeIEMqGGVe
— Baseball by BSmile (@BSmile) October 25, 2020
The rules are the rules, and you gotta perform in the clutch, as legendary athletes do (see Michael Jordan’s flu game). Go ahead, hit me for being a softie – but I admit, sometimes watching a young person trying to make his mark taking the entire blame for a crucial loss because of a missed field goal – which seems to have little to do with the rest of the game we’ve been watching – can be tough. If you're the best of the best, you shouldn't have to be relying on a last-second miracle field goal to take you to the promised land.
Them’s the breaks, though. Pro sports aren’t for the faint of heart, and if you don’t deliver, you don’t win.
My takeaway is that I'm just really glad I didn’t decide to become a professional field goal kicker.
