The Jacksonville Jaguars didn’t do a ton to impress in this weekend’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. They lost 31-25, but it’s preseason and no one really cares other than head coach Liam Coen, who had his share of complaints following the game.
However, Jaguars’ kicker Cam Little absolutely made history in that game. Not NFL history, but football history.
Little booted a 70-yard field goal at the end of the first half and if that sounds really long, that’s because it is. It won’t break the record of Baltimore Ravens‘ awesome-then-bad-then-in-legal-trouble kicker Justin Tucker, who kicked a 66-yarder against the Detroit Lions in 2021. And, of course it was against the Lions because…Lions.
It won’t knock Tucker out of the NFL record books because the kick was in a preseason game and there are no records kept for exhibition games. But, we all saw it. It was real NFL competition. This was not off of a tee by himself on a practice field with the wind at his back (which, let’s be honest, that would still be incredibly impressive).
Cam Little set NCAA record too
Previously, the longest field goal ever made in football competition was in 1976. Abilene Christian’s Ove Johansson cracked a 69-yard field field, which is an absolute bomb.
However, college kickers back then had a little tee that raised the ball up off the turf by about an inch. Not to take anything away from Johansson; his record is still amazing mainly because place kickers were hot garbage then. Sorry, but they were and they aren’t even on the same planet as the studs we have today.
A friend of mine punted in the NFL for 20+ years in the 1980s/90s/2000s. He told me one time in the 80s that he punted from the plus-30 yard line. Why? Because they didn’t trust their kicker. Think of that the next time you’re ragging on Scott Norwood or wondering why punting averages were lower back then. Kickers just weren’t that good then and I’ll get into that in a different article.
Funny enough, earlier that day in 1976, barefoot kicker Tony Franklin hit two bombs of his own in Texas. He hit a would-be-NCAA record 65-yarder and also a 64-yarder. Maybe each of those guys had a tornado at their backs.
What Cam Little did is truly amazing, regardless of NFL records
Long kicks are really difficult for several reasons. First, the situation has to arise. No one outside of Lane Kiffin would attempt anything that stupid unless it was at the end of a game or a half. For the record, in 2008 Kiffin sent Sebastian Janikowski out to attempt a 76-yard field goal in Oakland. He was fired two days later and based on this in-game decision it sounds like he knew it was coming.
A kicker obviously has to have the power, but a lot of kickers in today’s NFL have absolute cannons on their legs. However, using all your power while still maintaining accuracy can be a Herculean task. Ever play golf? Hit it as hard as you can and let me know how that goes.
And then there is trajectory. Little had to not only give it a ton of leg, he had to get the ball up so it got over the line. Trajectory is one of the big reasons long kicks aren’t made; the ball has to be driven low.
So, congrats to Cam Little. He may not make it into the official NFL record books, but true football fans will know what he did.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Jacksonville Jaguars Player Makes Football History appeared first on Heavy Sports.