Tag: inconsistent

The Athletic has live coverage of Ravens vs Bills in the AFC Divisional Round

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The NFL postseason is a pad-popping, teeth-grinding, blood-dripping full throb.

Games get more violent, the moments increasingly intense, the decisions more consequential. Any wrong move could prove costly. Passion and effort must rise to the magnitude of what’s at stake.

Except for one guy.

“When more eyes are on you,” said retired Pro Bowl kicker Mike Hollis, “linemen and receivers and linebackers can play harder, run harder, hit harder.

“Kickers, there’s nothing we have to change. Our attitude should be, ‘This is just another game.’ You need to be oblivious.”

GO DEEPER

How do NFL kickers deal with pressure and failure? We asked three former greats

Sunday night at Highmark Stadium, two kickers will try to ignore their turbulent 2024 campaigns in a below-freezing, AFC divisional playoff game that could come down to one stroke of either’s right Nike. The Buffalo Bills opened as 1 1/2 point favorites over the Baltimore Ravens, but the spread has flipped the other way. That’s how close the matchup looks.

In terms of reputation, Baltimore demigod Justin Tucker would seem to have a decisive edge over Buffalo kicker Tyler Bass, an unreliable performer dating back to last year’s playoffs. Bass actually has been better than Tucker this season, but the truth remains that a trip to the AFC Championship Game could be decided by someone who has very recently spent significant time searching for answers.

“Most likely, you’re going to need them,” former All-Pro kicker John Carney said. “But we don’t want to blow this thing up into a giant game that is (larger than life) because it is a sport. It’s a game. There will be four quarters of football.

“We just want to prepare well and play well. Does everybody need a Pro Bowl performance to play well? No. You just have to play solid football.”

Carney and Hollis are longtime instructors who’ve worked with scores of NFL kickers. Bass has been a client of Carney’s at the Art of Kicking in suburban San Diego. Hollis runs ProForm Kicking Academy outside Jacksonville. Thousands of stories have been written about how kickers handle their headspaces, but The Athletic reached out for their thoughts about what teams and other outside influences should do or avoid when it comes to managing an inconsistent kicker.

Both agreed for the most part that the best approach usually is to leave them alone, a sentiment Bills coach Sean McDermott echoed Friday morning.

“It starts with not overthinking it, honestly,” McDermott said. “I’m not certified in the field, but let’s just start there.”

This is the same playoff round and location where last year Bass missed a 44-yard field goal that would have tied the Kansas City Chiefs with 1:43 to play but instead ended the Bills’ season. Buffalo declined to bring in offseason competition for Bass, and he struggled over the summer. He missed a field goal in three of the first six games — none longer than 48 yards — and failed on two extra points over that span, prompting the Bills to sign kicker Lucas Havrisik to the practice squad.

Tucker, meanwhile, had the worst year of his otherworldly career. Baltimore stuck with him, although coach John Harbaugh’s glowing support got dimmer as the missed kicks piled up.

There might be a temptation from coaches or teammates to offer support and extra smacks on the shoulder pads, but Hollis said he preferred being left alone before an attempt.

“I never liked it when any player would say anything to me. ‘Hey, man, you gotta make this!’ Don’t tell me how important the kick is,” Hollis said. “I have to not worry too much about the consequence, making or missing the kick, winning or losing the game.

“If I change what I’ve always done, I may get lucky and make the kick, but why would I take that chance?”

GO DEEPER

How the Bills defense has changed since Week 4, and some key matchups vs. Ravens

Bass and Tucker improved as the playoffs approached. Bass hasn’t missed a field goal in over a month since a 24-yard attempt against the Detroit Lions, although he did miss an extra point in the regular-season finale versus the New England Patriots.

Unlike contemporary kickers who rely on athleticism to power the ball through the uprights, Hollis described himself as a technical kicker while playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars and finishing his career with the Bills in 2002.

“Kickers get in trouble when they think they need to add more to the kick,” Hollis said. “What kickers are doing right now is reprogramming themselves in the middle of the kick because they think they have to kick it better. But when you get into the playoffs, you have to be oblivious to the situation. In reality, there’s nothing different about what you have to do to make the kick.

“I know in the back of my head this is an important game and an important kick, but I convince myself it’s not because that takes the pressure off me, having to kick it carefully. I rely on ‘I’ve done this a million times. Why would I do anything different? Why would it matter if it’s the first kick of the game or the winner?’”

There’s no way to know whether Bass’ calmness will sustain through Sunday night, but Friday afternoon when reporters were allowed in the Bills’ locker room, he was playing chess with receiver Mack Hollins.

Bass is amenable to thoughtful interviews, but he has not been as forthcoming about his erraticism as Tucker this season. The likely Pro Football Hall of Famer admitted he strains to forget his mistakes like Hollis advocates.

“I take it really, really personally,” Tucker said after making both field goal attempts, including a 51-yarder, to help beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 16. “As much as I try to stay positive about it, it’s very real that I kind of lean into the negative reinforcement sometimes. I tell myself, like, ‘You have to make this kick if you are worth anything to this team, if you’re worth anything to your teammates. All the work that you put in, you have to make this kick. You don’t have a choice.’

“I’m kind of trying to toe that line and just remain the same, which is easier said than done, given the nature of the pressures that come with playing in this league.”

A year removed from scoring 147 points — the second-most in the league — Tucker was among the least efficient kickers in 2024. He made a career-low 22 field goals. His 73.3 conversion percentage ranked 32nd and was 10.7 points below the league average.

Bass finished 1.2 percentage points under the league average, but he was the lone kicker this season to both make an attempt from at least 60 yards while also being perfect from 50 yards or longer. He made three field goals from 50 yards exactly, but his thunderbolt was beating the Miami Dolphins in Week 9 on a club-record, 61-yard field goal as time expired.

“That carries over,” Carney said. “That allows you to step on the field without anxiety of ‘Can I do this?’ or feeling, like, ‘This is uncharted territory for me.’ He did it. The only way you can get that calm and confidence is through the experience of stepping out there with the opportunity to kick game-winning field goals.

“He’s kicked a lot of game-winners, and he’s going to kick a lot more over the course of his career. Those add up and continue to build your confidence for the moments when they need your three points.”

GO DEEPER

Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson are in each other’s way, whether they downplay it or not

Tucker has a long history of highlights to recall, kicks that have forged a reputation impressive enough to make him the subject of a “60 Minutes” feature.

A kicker? On “60 Minutes”? That’s how great Tucker has been before this year. He once made 65 straight field goals in the fourth quarter or overtime and 82 consecutive field goals in the second half or overtime. He has made a sterling 28 of 31 attempts within the final two minutes of a game and has made an NFL-record seven field goals as time expired, including an NFL-record 66-yarder to beat the Detroit Lions three years ago.

This year, of course, has been nothing like that. It has looked more like Tucker’s time is expiring, like that “60 Minutes” stopwatch — tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick — might be marking the end of an era.

“For what it’s worth, I still have the exact amount of confidence I did a week ago or two weeks ago or three weeks ago,” Tucker said. “Sometimes it just, in the wise words of (former Ravens outside linebacker) Terrell Suggs, ‘Sometimes it just be like that.’ The ball comes off your foot, and it does not go exactly where you want it every single time.”

Tucker made six of his 11 attempts from 50 yards or longer, his deepest two attempts from 56 yards.

Several teams bombed more long-distance kicks than asked of Tucker or Bass, but their offenses didn’t travel up and down the turf like the Bills and Ravens do. Dallas Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey made 14 of 17 attempts from 50-plus and 2 of 4 from 60-plus, including a 65-yard conversion. Steelers mainstay Chris Boswell never tried more than nine field goals in a season from 50 or longer, but he went 13 of 15 from that distance this season to earn his first All-Pro honor in his 10th year.

That usually is Tucker’s award. He holds the record with five first-team All-Pro selections for a kicker, two more than Hall of Famer Morten Andersen and New England Patriots legend Adam Vinatieri.

Andersen was named the kicker for the Hall of Fame’s all-decade teams of the 1980s and 1990s. Vinatieri was the choice for the 2000s. Tucker was chosen for the 2010s, but, at 35 years old, he’ll need to get back on track to have a shot at duplicating Andersen’s back-to-back feat.

GO DEEPER

A specimen, the King, a blur: Bills buckle up for rematch with Derrick Henry and his fear factor

Despite the lengthy list of accomplishments, Tucker has played only four more postseason games than Bass and hasn’t been particularly successful in Orchard Park.

In the 2020 postseason, Tucker hit the left upright from 41 yards away on the opening drive and clanged the right upright from 46 yards before making a 34-yarder right before halftime of Buffalo’s 17-3 victory. In two other Highmark Stadium games, he made all three of his field goals, but none longer than 36 yards.

As of Friday afternoon, the forecast for kickoff is about 12 degrees with 10 mph winds and a 50 percent chance of snow.

“Home-field advantage is more than just a drop in temperature,” said Carney, who spent his 23 NFL seasons on the West Coast or the Deep South aside from 15 games with the New York Giants and five with the Chiefs. “That home-field team knows that stadium, knows the surface, knows what to wear, knows how to practice in it. They know what shoes slip, what the wind patterns mean. That’s why it’s a huge advantage.”

The idea that Bass might have better footing Sunday night to be the hero compared to Tucker would seem implausible to frustrated Bills fans.

But with thoughts and emotions and weather swirling, advancing to the conference title game might be decided by the kicker who forgets what could go wrong and treats his critical moment like any other play.

(Top photos of Tyler Bass and Justin Tucker: Bryan Bennett and Patrick Smith / Getty Images)