If you know your tortured Vikings history when it comes to kickers, the following statistic will take your breath away like a Blair Walsh duck hook from 27 yards out with 26 seconds left in a 10-9 playoff loss:
Analysis: Quarterback whisperer? Maybe Kevin O’Connell is also a kicker whisperer.
Vikings rookie kicker Will Reichard knows Daniel Carlson and knows what happened at Lambeau Field. But he’s unbothered by the team’s tortured history with kickers.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
September 28, 2024 at 1:13AM
Coach Kevin O’Connell is 12-1 in games in which his kicker has missed a field goal or an extra point. He’s 6-1 when his kicker has missed more than once. And the loss was a 41-17 blowout at Green Bay in 2022.
Quarterback whisperer? Heck, let’s start calling K.O. the Kicker Whisperer.
He’s made it 38 games into his Vikings career without one of those game-ending sucker punches that are all too familiar to Vikings Nation. He’s also had 25 games (65.8%) in which his kicker has been perfect.
Greg Joseph had more misses than any kicker in the league in 2022 (13). The Vikings won 13 games, including one in which Joseph nailed a team-record 61-yard walk-off game-winner.
Joseph had eight more misses in 2023. The Vikings went 5-0 in those games.
But rather than tempt the kicking gods with a third year of Joseph, O’Connell moved on. That cleared the way for Will Reichard to be drafted in the sixth round.
Reichard arrived as a big-legged, big-name, big-game kicker from Alabama. He’s the NCAA record-holder in points with 547 on 84 field goals, including 10 from 50-plus, and 295 extra points.
Special teams coordinator Matt Daniels has nicknamed him “Will the Thrill,” but that doesn’t quite fit the flatlining 23-year-old who looks even younger and certainly gangly enough to blend in with any high school band.
But, as we’re discovering through the Vikings’ 3-0 start, there’s more to Will than meets the eye. He’s one of 10 NFL kickers who’s still perfect, having made a league-high 10 PATs and five field goals, including a 58-yarder that ranks as the second-longest in franchise history and, according to Reichard, would have been good from 63 to 65 yards if it hadn’t hit one of the uprights.
“This guy is just a stone-cold killer, man,” Daniels said.
Given some of his predecessors’ love-hate relationships — and oftentimes hate-hate relationships — with kickers, O’Connell was asked to describe his approach to them.
He explained how he scripted training camp practices to surprise Reichard and the team with pressure-kicking situations. He talked about getting “in his head” to build his confidence.
“But you also need to go get the right kind of guy,” O’Connell said. “This guy’s made of the right stuff, and we’re lucky to have him.”
For Vikings fans, Sunday is another litmus test for Reichard. After all, he’s a rookie. … He’s heading to Lambeau Field. … It’s September … (See where we’re going with this?)
“Yes, I’ve heard of Daniel Carlson,” Reichard said when asked about, well, you know. “I actually know Daniel pretty well through his younger brother, Anders, [a former Packers kicker], who I became friends with when we were going to a lot of high school kicking camps around the country.
“I saw Daniel this summer. We did some training together in Tennessee. He was telling me that I’d love it up here.”
If that latter part is true, that’s mighty big of Daniel to point out Minnesota’s strengths considering his Vikings career lasted only two games before coach Mike Zimmer whacked him the morning after a 29-29 tie at Green Bay in Week 2 of the 2018 season.
Carlson, a fifth-round pick, went 0-for-3 on field goals that day. He missed a 48-yarder near the end of the first half, a 49-yarder midway through overtime and a 35-yarder as time expired.
“Yeah, we really didn’t talk about that game too much, to be honest,” Reichard said. “I didn’t really want to ask him what happened that day in Lambeau. I thought maybe it would be a sore subject. But he obviously bounced back and has become one of the best kickers in the NFL in Las Vegas.”
How Reichard kicks Sunday is anyone’s guess. The only thing that seems certain is that he’ll still be on the team 24 hours later.
“As I’ve told Will, I’d be great with it if he doesn’t miss a kick all season,” O’Connell said. “At the same time, I know he’s going to respond and not miss a beat if he does miss one. It doesn’t concern me in the slightest and every time he kicks.”
A Vikings coach unconcerned about his kicker?
Strange, indeed.
Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold is completing more passes more often for more touchdowns than he ever has. “What we’re trying to get from Sam is to play the best football of his career,” coach Kevin O'Connell said.
