We just witnessed NFL Kicking History
Yes, preseason kicking records MEAN SOMETHING. Plus, Team USA finally won the men's softball world championship I demanded (kinda) and more from THE WORLD GAMES.
It turns out the World Games are in China and every weird sport I want to watch is happening at 3 a.m. Eastern time. As much as I love watching weird sports, I am not willing to stay up every night for the rest of the week watching weird sports. I have, however, committed to a solid “watch weird sports as I drift off to sleep” strategy which only mildly irritates my wife.
But first … KICKING HISTORY!
Little’s Big Kick
My #1 interest in sports is Football Special Teams. And Saturday night, we saw history: Jacksonville kicker Cam Little hit a 70-yard field goal in a preseason game.
I know, I know: Preseason. But while I’d roll my eyes at a guy throwing 5 touchdowns against fourth-stringers in a preseason game — not that such a thing could ever happen with the number of substitutions in preseason—field goals don’t get easier during an exhibition. Preseason yards are just as long as regular season yards.
So I am freaking out about this. This was HISTORY. This MEANS SOMETHING TO ME. I don’t care that it didn’t count in a game that “matters.” This was an all-time football accomplishment, a new frontier unlocked in our quest to bomb footballs as far as possible with our human feet.
Little’s kick was the longest in the history of organized football. The previous record belonged to Ove Johansson, a Swede who somehow wound up playing for Abilene Christian, then an NAIA school, in 1976.
You may be wondering, “How come it took 49 years for anybody to make a kick longer than a Swedish kid at an NAIA school? Haven’t kickers gotten a lot better since 1976?” The answer is pretty simple: College kickers were allowed to use tees until 1988, and college uprights were wider at the time. You can see the kicking tee pretty clearly in the video of Johansson’s feat. While Johansson’s kick was still a historic outlier, the tee helps explain why pros couldn’t match his mark until now.
Without tees, 70 has seemed like an impossible kicking dream. In regular season games, kickers are 0-for-8 attempting 70-yarders … and most haven’t been close. Even Brandon Aubrey, the Cowboys kicker who has hit from 65 and 66 in regular season games, missed his 70-yard attempt last year by a mile.
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserWhen Justin Tucker hit his NFL record 66-yard field goal in 2021 — a kick that slammed into the crossbar, bounced up and doinked in — his team had to cross midfield, snapping the ball at the opposing 48-yard line. Little’s field goal was snapped at Jacksonville’s own 48-yard line. You don’t even have to cross midfield to score three points anymore.
Little is on pace to have a spectacular career. Little was the youngest kicker ever picked in the NFL draft after taking the rare step of declaring for the draft early as a kicker in 2024. He was instantly one of the best kickers in the league as a rookie. He finished sixth in the league in FG%, hit all of his extra points and tied the Jags’ franchise record with a 59-yard field goal. And he’s still a week away from his 22nd birthday.
Little played college football at Arkansas. Because he was so good, his backup didn’t play much and graduated without ever attempting a field goal. That backup, Jake Bates, somehow got a job in the UFL, hit a 64-yard field goal and became the Lions’ kicker last year. Someone give Arkansas’ kicking coach a raise.
A couple of factors may have aided Little’s historic kick. One was the temperature on the field. Hot air is less dense, which is why baseball players hit more home runs in the summer than the spring and fall. This game was played in Jacksonville in August. When my former colleague Kevin Clark interviewed Tucker about “the quest for the 70-yarder” in 2017, Tucker repeatedly mentioned warm temperature.
The kick also took advantage of a little-noticed offseason rule change: Starting this season, teams are allowed to show up to games with already-broken-in kicking balls. Previously, “k-balls” remained in the custody of officials until 90 minutes before game time, at which point team equipment staffers would begin furiously preparing the balls with towels and brushes. The rule likely changed because teams were fed up with having to dedicate gameday staffers to ball treatment, but the upshot is that kickers will have better prepared, easier-to-kick footballs this year. Kicking YouTuber Isaac Punts pointed out that Rams punter Ethan Evans also set a record in his preseason game, so we might see balls booming all season long.
I’m absolutely counting this as a record. Look at the defense on the kick: They were going 100 percent! Those are cuttable players trying to prove their worth on special teams to make the roster … which is actually pretty similar to the regular season, when special teams units are made up of end-of-roster players rather than stars.
Most importantly: If we acknowledge Little’s 70-yarder as the longest field goal in NFL history, we no longer have to acknowledge the 66-yarder made by Tucker, who was accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen Baltimore massage therapists this offseason. So what I’m saying is… Congrats to our new kicking king!
We’re #1!*
Three weeks ago, I posted a desperate plea for the United States to win a world championship in men’s softball.
This past weekend, Team USA finally delivered. Kinda. Team USA was awarded the gold medal at The World Games in China … after the gold medal game against Japan was rained out. The two teams were both given golds and everybody went home happy.
I loved when the Olympic high jump competition in 2021 ended in a gold medal tie because the two athletes decided to split the title. (WOULD’VE BEEN NICE LAST YEAR!) But I have some questions for the Chengdu World Games organizing committee.
On the one hand, I’m very impressed that The World Games seems to have been fully prepared for the possibility of a gold medal tie. They had enough medals to go around — that’s 12 extra golds and 12 extra bronzes! — and seemingly jerry-rigged two massive podiums — a big double-gold podium for Team USA and Japan, and a big double-bronze podium for Venezuela and Canada.
On the other hand, why not delay the contests for a day or two? It’s not raining in China today, or tomorrow. It’s not even raining in the picture I posted above of the medal ceremony. The women’s tournament doesn’t even start until Wednesday, so it’s not like the fields were urgently needed. And I can’t imagine that all the players needed to go home immediately.
I gotta wonder, though: What are they going to do with all those leftover silvers?
Can I have one?
I won’t say that I won it or anything. I’d just like to have it. I think it would be nice.
Could the United States have beaten Japan and won this gold outright? They were 4-0 while outscoring their opponents by 34 runs in 22 innings of play. They walloped Venezuela, winners of last month’s World Cup, 7-0 in the semifinals. And Japan has never won a World Championship in men’s softball. Team USA is smiling up on the medal stand, but probably a little pissed this game didn’t happen.
Either way, my demand that the United States becomes a championship-winning men’s softball country has been fulfilled. I feel extremely powerful, like a Niche Sports God. Let me know what other American championships I should will into existence.
Around the World (Games)
Let’s do a quick roundup of other World Games stuff:
On Thursday, I said my #1 bet for The World Games was a Team USA win in disc golf. (It was just a hypothetical … you can’t actually bet on The World Games.) (But, like, if you can figure out a way to bet on The World Games somewhere, let me know.) Well, I was right: The Double Gannon squad of Gannon Buhr and Missy Gannon dominated Finland in the gold medal match, winning the first four holes and ending the match on the 13th hole.
American Kaden Brown won his second World Games gold medal in tumbling. I legitimately got a little bit disoriented/dizzy trying to count how many times he flips in this pass (11?), which makes me think tumbling is not the sport for me.
15-year-old Jett Lambert won gold in wakesurfing. There is apparently also a professional bullrider named Jett Lambert. Surely, there will be a BYU wide receiver named Jett Lambert as well at some point in the next five years.
Karateka Ariel Torres, who did an episode of my Tokyo Olympics podcast and then won a bronze medal, got a silver this time around. He performs kata, the solo form of karate in which you simply demonstrate your moves (and SCREAMS) instead of actually fighting anybody:
Taiwan won its sixth straight women’s tug-of-war championship. It has literally never lost at The World Games. The streak is kind of ridiculous when you think about it: The event has weight limits, presumably rosters turn over pretty regularly, and I can’t imagine there’s much strategy besides “pull in unison.” How is it possible that one country in such a basic event is so unbeatable?
Germany’s Nina Holt won five gold medals in lifesaving, setting two world records. Here she is in the 100m rescue medley:
Holt swam in the Olympics last year and participated in the World Aquatics Championships a few weeks ago, finishing 14th in the women’s 100m freestyle. She’s apparently an even better swimmer while carrying a mannequin weighing 100-plus pounds.
You know I like to bring you the world’s biggest sports blowouts, and The World Games are great for situations where one country actually takes a sport seriously and another country has like 17 active players. Here’s the biggest blowout I could find: Finland’s 42-0 floorball win over China.
China was outscored 93-1 in three games, netting its lone goal in a 15-1 loss to a Canadian team that itself lost 24-1 to Finland. And in inline roller hockey, the Chinese men’s team lost 20-1 to Team USA. At least China tried fielding a team in every sport!
Quick Hits
17-year-old Hezly Rivera dominated USA Gymnastics National Championships, winning three of the four apparatus championships en route to an all-around title. I mainly knew her as the member of last year’s Olympic team who didn’t participate in the team event. No surprise, she’s actually really good!
On the men’s side, Stanford’s Asher Hong won the all-around title, and Donnell Whittenburg’s arms had a viral moment.
Our road course hero Shane van Gisbergen won his FOURTH consecutive NASCAR road course race, this one at Watkins Glen by 11 seconds.
Meanwhile, SVG’s teammate, 19-year-old Connor Zilisch, won the second-tier Xfinity Series race at the Glen … but broke his collarbone celebrating the win on Victory Lane. He had one foot on his car’s roof and one still inside the window when the celebratory water-spraying started, leading to a bad slip and fall:
Zilisch leads the Xfinity Series in points, but could lose the regular season championship if he misses time due to the injury.
Johnstown, Pa., won the Little League Softball World Series thanks to the dominance of Reagan Bills, who threw four consecutive shutouts and had the only RBI in the team’s 1-0 win in the championship game.
Tommy Fleetwood, at this point firmly established as the most successful golfer of all time without a PGA Tour win, blew another late lead. He led after 36 holes and after 54 holes, but bogeyed 17 and lost by a stroke. Fleetwood now has six runner-up finishes and 29 top-5s without a win.
On Deck
I’m just going to keep watching The World Games. Some good stuff coming up this week:
Beach handball (championships on the 12th)
Ultimate
frisbee(championship on the 16th)Women’s softball (championship on the 17th)
Women’s flag football (championship on the 17th)
But seriously, just click here and something cool and weird will happen every day. Well, every night, I guess.
Love this World Games writeup...I'm all in, but agree with you about the time zone troubles.
The lack of delay (since women's softball doesn't start until later in the week, so logistically the field should have been open) may be due to the travel schedule of the teams.
Men's softball competition has already had some competition delayed a day due to the travel of some teams. Since most National Olympic Committees do not fund men's softball teams (or provide a minimal stipend compared to women's softball teams), the athletes are likely on the hook for their travel and have a very hard out in terms of travel to get back to their other jobs. In addition, I wonder if the World Games were reusing some housing between sports (i.e. men's softball teams out on the morning of Aug 11, clean day, women's softball teams on the morning of Aug 12)
To your first point, there is an American fan fatigue with World Championships/global events in Asia this year. It comes down to $$$, but American fans already had some fatigue with Korea, Tokyo, Beijing back-to-back-to-back, and this summer- Swimming Worlds (all of Aquatics) in Singapore, World Games in China, Track and Field World Championships in Tokyo. seems to feel like deja vu. I think all these sports want the money, but it is at the cost of losing some American fans, and even in the World Games, as some of the top U.S. athletes (who were world champions in archery, powerlifting, wakeboarding) and athletes from other European countries elected not to participate or travel to Asia for the World Games.
Favorite World Games things so far are in T&T: Kaden defending his gold (beautiful form, a delight to watch always), and Ruben Padilla dropping in a ridiculously difficult second pass on double mini trampoline after his first had gone awry, even though (because?) he was basically out of the finals picture.
These are mostly my favorites because they are what I managed to watch while at a conference, but I'm excited to actually watch things this week!