There was a time when a 50-yard field goal was a rare accomplishment in the NFL. That time has passed.
Now, 50-yard field goals are so commonplace that NFL kickers are 77-for-108 on field goals of 50 yards or longer this season. They’ve made 71.3 percent of all field goal attempts from 50 yards and beyond.
A 50 yard or longer field goal happens about twice as frequently per game as it did 10 years ago; this year there’s been about 0.4 field goals of 50 yards or longer per team per game, and in 2015 it was about 0.2. Twenty years ago, 50-yard field goals were so rare that there were only 48 of them all season, or less than 0.1 per team per game.
But just looking at field goals of 50 yards or longer doesn’t even tell the whole story, because coaches are letting their kickers attempt field goals from much farther out than they used to. A 60-yard field goal attempt used to be almost unthinkable, but this year NFL kickers are 4-for-8 from beyond 60 yards through six weeks. As recently as 2014, there wasn’t a single 60-yard field goal in the NFL for the entire season.
For much of NFL history, one of the league’s most famous records was Tom Dempsey’s record for longest field goal, which was 63 yards. Already this year Chase McLaughlin has made a 65-yard field goal and Brandon Aubrey has made a 64-yard field goal.
In the NFL’s first 86 seasons, there were a grand total of four 60-yard field goals. There have been four already this season.
The NFL has never seen long-distance field goals like it’s seeing this year.
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