Tag: justin tucker record field goal

Officials miss delay of game before Justin Tucker’s record-setting, game-winning field goal

The Ravens didn’t just make history with Justin Tucker’s 66-yard game-winning field goal. They also had help from the officials.

It’s great for Ravens kicker Justin Tucker that he set the NFL record on Sunday with a 66-yarder at the end of the game to help Baltimore beat the Lions, 17-16. What’s not great is that, per the NFL rules, the Ravens should have penalized five yards on the previous play, and Tucker should have either had to try a 71-yard field goal, or the Ravens would perhaps try a Hail Mary to win the game.

Here was the situation. With 26 second left in the game, the Lions completely blew coverage on this fourth-and-19 throw from Lamar Jackson to Sammy Watkins, which turned into a 36-yard gain, and the ball at the Detroit 48-yard line.

Then, Jackson spiked the ball to stop the clock with seven seconds left, and threw the ball out of bounds with six second left. But it was what happened before the throwaway that caught our attention in the moment.

Yes, Jackson was given a full two seconds after the play clock expired. That should have been a delay of game call and a five-yard penalty. Since the game clock was not moving, there would not have been a ten-second runoff to end the game, but asking Tucker to kick a 71-yard field goal when his 66-yarder just barely made it, bouncing off the bottom of the upright, would have been a rather large ask.

Scott Novak’s crew has some explaining to do here. Gene Steratore, the  former NFL official who now works for CBS Sports, tried to excuse the mistake, to no avail.

You will occasionally see officials give quarterbacks the benefit of a half-second or so in instances like these, but again, this was a full two seconds.

Were the Lions responsible for their own demise with that fourth-and-19 stinker? Yes. Was it weird that the Lions had no timeouts left when Tucker made the kick, with nothing left to try and ice him with? Sure. But to have a game turn on this kind of ineptitude is just a bad look for the NFL.

Cardinals kicker Matt Prater just had the worst day of his NFL career

Matt Prater contributed to an NFL record he didn’t want to further, and lost an NFL record he did want to keep — all in the same day.

We’re sure that when Cardinals kicker Matt Prater woke up this morning, he wasn’t expecting the day to unfold the way it did. In Arizona’s 31-19 win over the Jaguars, Prater missed a 68-yard field goal at the end of the first half that was returned by Jacksonville receiver/defensive back Jamal Agnew for a record-tying 109-yard touchdown. As previously noted, Prater was also responsible for the most recent 109-yard missed field goal return — in the 2018 preseason when he was with the Lions, and Buccaneers receiver Adam Humphries returned Prater’s 62-yard miss the same distance.

The football gods were not done with Prater, though. When Prater was with the Broncos in 2013, he set the NFL record for the longest field goal in NFL history with a 64-yarder, and he booted a 62-yarder against the Vikings in Week 2, so that was at the root of the Cardinals’ confidence in Prater’s abilities.

As it turned out, it was the Ravens who expected a superhuman effort from their kicker and were actually rewarded for it. With time expiring in Baltimore’s game against the Lions, Justin Tucker — one of the most accurate kickers in NFL history — kicked a 66-yard field goal to take his team to a 19-17 win, and also to take Prater’s record out of the books.

Perhaps more agonizing is the fact that the ball bounced off the bottom of the upright before it went in. Have you ever had one of those days where you just want to go back to bed and start over? Matt Prater might be experiencing that right now.