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Why do so many NFL kickers get injured? Specialized switches are on the rise this season

By DAVE CAMPBELL AP Pro Football Writer

EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — The kicker carousel has revolved around the NFL regularly this fall.

The riders keep getting injured.

Traditionally seen in this tough sport as the maverick specialists who know how to keep the danger lurking in wait, the place-kicking community has experienced an inordinate amount of pain this season for a role that is largely about dealing with the mental problems. challenge of high pressure performance.

Teams that have made it this far without having to change kickers should consider themselves lucky.

“I’m just looking for a living leg, you know?” New York Jets interim coach Jeff Ulbrich said last week after his team’s latest shuffle landed on Spencer Shrader, who is now headed to the Kansas City Chiefs with eighth-year veteran Harrison Butker on injured reserve.

Butker is one of seven kickers currently on IR, a sort of who’s-who group at the position that also includes Matt Prater and Greg Zuerlein.

This will be Shrader’s third team, having also played one game for the Indianapolis Colts. His expected replacement with the Jets, Anders Carlson, already has two games under his belt for the San Francisco 49ers. There were 45 different players who attempted at least one kick in the regular season this week, and that number did not reflect Shrader’s performance on multiple teams. By the end of the weekend the total would essentially be 48.

The Jets will be at four in four weeks, joining the 49ers and their fellow tenant the New York Giants for most of the league. Both the 49ers and Giants had to give up their punters due to injuries during the game. The Washington Commanders used three.

According to data from Sportradar, only 41 kickers were used in the league during the entire 2023 season, including one punter appearance and a Riley Patterson double with both the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions. Ten years ago, only 37 players attempted a kick in a regular-season game.

So what’s the story? Predictably, opinions vary within the NFL.

One problem was that there were more kickoffs in the game after the rule change, as the 49ers experienced when Jake Moody and Matthew Wright went down trying to make a tackle in consecutive games. The touchback percentage has fallen from 74.3% in 2023 to 67.2% in 2024, according to Sportradar.

“I would never be the coach that says, ‘Let them score,’ but damn, that’s two weeks in a row,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said last month.

Of course, there is also the theory that the collective increase in leg strength in competition has led to more muscle injuries. Nine field goals have already been attempted from more than 60 yards, matching the 2023 total. The number of more than 50 field goal attempts, currently 154, is on pace to break the 2023 total of 230.

“As a result, you may be practicing and working more 50-yard field goals during the week, so leg stress and soft tissue injuries accumulate as we get deeper and deeper into the sport. season,” said Minnesota Vikings special teams coordinator Matt Daniels, whose rookie kicker Will Reichard went down last week with a quadriceps strain that bubbled up during a recent game.

The Vikings typically kick off practices on Wednesdays and Fridays before a Sunday game.

“You really have to make sure you keep an eye on those guys, especially the young ones who feel like they’re young whippersnappers and can kick until their leg falls off,” Daniels said. “You definitely have to be smart about that and certainly hold them accountable.”

For those who ignore the correlation between kicking over longer distances and the increase in injuries across the league, there is still a clear understanding that workload during the week must be carefully managed.

“Part of it is finding that routine in the first place. I think some guys are young enough that it doesn’t matter at first, and if they don’t have a routine after a few years, then it rears its ugly head and something happens,” said Browns kicker Dustin Hopkins, who has been struggling with hamstring injuries for several seasons. “I don’t want to say long kicks, because in theory your effort is very similar – at least for me – for a 60-year-old as for a 44-year-old.”

Parker Romo can attest to the benefit of a reliable routine. The 27-year-old was called up by the Vikings to replace Reichard and made all four of his field goal attempts to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars last week.

“You definitely don’t want to kick too much just because you never know when the phone might ring.” You have to be ready because one day they call you and the next day you are training for the team,” Romo said. “I think it’s just important to limit those longer reps. Sure, it’s fun to hit them and keep going, but you have to be smart about it.

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AP Pro Football writers Josh Dubow, Teresa M. Walker and Dennis Waszak Jr. and AP Sports writers Steve Megargee, Alanis Thames, John Wawrow and Tom Withers contributed.

The Associated Press contributed to this article