Welcome to the NFL’s juiced-ball era.
The league passed a rule this spring that allows teams to spend all season preparing their own K-balls, or balls reserved specifically for kicks and punts. From 1999-2024, teams were only allowed to doctor them right before kickoff.
The result has been a revolution. Half of the six longest field goals in NFL history have happened in the last two months. Just two weeks ago, the Jaguars’ Cam Little made the longest field goal ever— a 68-yarder.
“The game is definitely evolving,” Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower said.
Cairo Santos is the more accurate Bears kicker in the history of Soldier Field, and the next field goal he makes from 50-plus yards will surpass Robbie Gould for the most in franchise history. Bombing kicks from deep isn’t Santos’ game, though, and he knows it. If he were ever going to join the glut of kickers setting new careers highs, it will have to happen Sunday against the Vikings inside U.S. Bank Stadium. That’s the Bears’ last indoor game — they have four left at Soldier Field and others in Philadelphia, Green Bay and the Bay Area.
Santos compares some of the league’s long-range kickers to golfers who tee off on a dry, elevated desert course. Santos, though, imagines himself at Whistling Straights, the blustery Wisconsin course ravaged by Lake Michigan wind. It’s his job to keep his composure and hit the ball straight, regardless of the weather.
“You just have to use a different club,” he said.
If Santos can make kicks between 50-55 yards in the cold weather of Soldier Field, he’s doing his job.
“I never looked at long field goals as a realistic weapon that you should have in Chicago,” he said.
Perhaps that’s why, when the league put the K-ball rule up to a vote, the Bears were the one franchise that voted against it.
Before the season began, each team received a bag of 60 Wilson K-balls. Teams can bring three balls to each game — and can use one ball in a maximum of three games. Officials can toss out balls that don’t meet specifications — and the NFL can fine teams, too.
As was the case before the rule change, teams are only allowed to treat the ball with specific tools — water, towels, sponges and wooden brushes — to help remove its waxy coating.
Straight out of the box, the ball feels like a square, Santos said. His goal is to make the leather softer, the points rounder and the ball as compressed as he can.
On game day he wants the ball as inflated as possible, all the way up to the 13.5 PSI max. Santos doesn’t want to kick a pillow — he wants to boot a soccer ball.
“It just takes a whole different shape,” Santos said.
So long as the ball gets on the field. In Week 8, Santos left a 58-yard attempt short — using a regular ball — after the Bears’ “Toro” hurry-up field goal team had to sprint on the field as the first half expired. The next week, the Bengals’ Evan McPherson left a 54-yarder short against the Bears because Cincinnati didn’t get its K-ball into play before the 25-second play clock began.
The NFL’s new kickoff rule has further changed the calculus on field goals, too. Certain touchbacks on kickoffs give teams the ball at the 40-yard line, pushing them, in some cases, two first downs away from field goal range. Over time, that might cheapen field goals and encourage teams in closer range to try for touchdowns.
Or to let fly from 68 yards — or longer.
“I think it just brought the game more into scoring situations, and people like to keep trying for points,” Santos said. “So it’s definitely changing the game, and maybe how teams are going to risk more.”