The 5 weirdest trends for NFL kickers

Barefoot Kicker

NFL

It’s an NFL clichĂ©: kickers are weird. That’s for fans to decide, but it’s certain that a few strange kicking trends have swept the league. For the NFL’s weirdest fads, look no further than the extra point.

1. Toe kicking…for everyone

Kicking with the toe wasn’t just a trend—it was the universal strategy for kicking. And it may have been the reason the kickers were so much worse than they are today.

Why did players kick with the toe? Many believed it reduced spin on the ball or a tendency to hit it on the side. Before the 60s, specialist kickers were also rare. So the entire NFL kicked in a manner that had low accuracy and distance. Some toe kickers were still amazing, of course. Mark Moseley, the only kicker to win the NFL MVP award, was still kicking with his toe when he retired in 1986.

2. Foreign players (with soccer chops)

The second kicker fad follows from the decline of the first. In 1964, Pete Gogolak began kicking for the Buffalo Bills and started a revolution. The Hungarian-born Gogolak kicked soccer style using his instep, and the vast improvement in kicking swept the league. The soccer style kick is statistically superior and even scientifically sound.

For decades, the NFL imported soccer players who knew how to play the strange game called football everywhere else in the world. It’s a mighty list that includes Norway’s Jan Stenerud, Cypriot Garo Yepremian, Brit Mick Luckhurst, the Argentinian Gramatica brothers, and many others. The NFL even chased soccer talent in the U.S., giving goalie Tony Meola a stab at playing for the Jets.

3. Deformed feet

Tom Dempsey's Foot

NFL

Tom Dempsey was one of the best kickers of all time, able to hit a field goal from 63 yards. It was a record only recently broken by Matt Prater. Even more impressive? He did it using a foot without toes.

There’s a reason to call this a trend and not just a triumph of the human spirit (though it’s definitely that too). Dempsey kicked with a special square-toed shoe that drew protests from players and coaches as “unfair.” Though it was never proven to give him an advantage, the NFL passed a rule banning irregular shoes, preventing more players like Dempsey or earlier toeless star Ben Agajanian.

4. Bare feet

Tom Dempsey's Foot

NFL

The opposite of a special shoe? No shoe at all.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, barefoot kicking became a bona fide trend, reaching its peak with Rich Karlis’s AFC Championship kick in 1987. The theory was that barefoot kicking gave a player a better feel for the ball and “preserved kinetic energy” better than wasting it on shoe leather. The barefoot kick turned out to be more of a fad than sound science, however, and players started lacing up again.

5. Extremely tight shoes

The current crop of kickers is not immune to trends. Many of today’s players wear their shoes up to three sizes too small. The reasoning? Players believe it makes the surface of the foot harder, transferring more energy to the ball.

The process for fitting into those such small shoes is impressively elaborate. Kicker Kai Forbath explained, “We have this shoe oven…you put the shoe in the over for about ten minutes, take it out, put it on real quick while it’s still burning hot. And I have to jam my foot in and wear it for around ten minutes.”

The trends may change, but one thing is certain: kickers are weird.

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Will any of these strategies stick around (or come back)?