Unprompted this week, Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio went on a rant about a new rule regarding kicking balls. Previously, teams were given new balls on game day and were permitted about an hour to break them in using NFL-approved brushes. This year, the process is entirely different. Teams were given 60 league-approved balls before the season started, and teams can adjust them as they please. They then bring three of those 60 broken-in kicking balls to each game to be approved and used on gameday.
Fangio believes this process has had such a profound impact on the game that he likened it to the steroid era in football.
“These kicking balls that they changed this year have drastically changed the kicking game, field goals in particular,” Fangio said. “So 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. The NFL, the kicking ball has drastically changed the field goals.”
It certainly is true that field goal kicking is better than ever. Through four weeks, kickers have made 24-of-35 attempts (68.6%) from 55 yards or longer. Even just going back a single year, kickers only made 54-of-91 attempts (59.3%) from the same distance for the entire 2024 season. Although it’s certainly possible that those numbers will merge once the weather gets colder.
Regardless, Detroit Lions special teams coordinator had a response for Fangio, and he made it pretty clear he doesn’t agree with his conclusion.
“I’m not sure how much Vic Fangio knows, but—I do respect the heck out of him, he’s a great coach—[…] I don’t think that it makes a big difference. I think it’s very minimal,” Fipp said. “I think it’s one of those things that is perfect for the NFL. Like, it draws headlines and people talk about it, and it’s a great storyline. But do I think it affects it? Sure, a little bit, but I do think very minimally.”
Fipp pointed to the Lions’ own process in previous years. Crediting equipment assistant Khamari Prude, he believes Detroit’s preparation in previous years—despite only getting one hour to break in the football—was more than adequate and similar to the kind of balls they are using under the new rules.
“We were going into the game with a great ball a year ago. If your guys didn’t prepare the ball well going into the game, maybe it makes a bigger difference for some of those people. I would say for us, minimally,” Fipp said.
So what’s with the improved kicking? The answer is much simpler and less conspiracy theory for Fipp.
“These guys are better players than they’ve ever been at all positions—offense, defense, special teams. These kickers have way bigger legs than they’ve ever had, coaches are going for it or kicking longer field goals much more than has ever been done before, and it’ll just open up the opportunity to get more of these players like that,” Fipp said.
It appears Fipp isn’t the only one who disagrees with Fangio. ESPN recently questioned a few anonymous special teams coordinators, and they all seem to think Fangio is exaggerating.
“There’s really nothing to see here,” one anonymous coordinator said. “There may be a little extra distance on the ball. I mean, could you argue that maybe there are a couple, 3, 4 yards extra on every ball? But the odds of making the kick haven’t changed one bit, so I don’t think it’s going to change your game analytics that much.”
So, nothing to see here, I guess. But maybe you learned a little more about the kicking ball process.
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