In the first fifty years of pro football, long kicks were more prayers than plans. The NFL in 1934 was very different than the one we watch today; back then, you could have a player like Glenn Presnell play quarterback, tailback, defense, and kicker… and also choose his team’s colors, as he and his wife did with the Detroit Lions and their Honolulu blue and silver. A few months later, Presnell made a big in-game contribution for Detroit: with the wind at his back and in front of 8,000 fans, he connected from 54 yards away to provide the sole points in a 3-0 win over rival Green Bay.  It was the longest kick in the young history of the NFL.

Kicks over 50 yards were very rare over the ensuing two decades.  A few of the top kickers like Lou Groza and Ben Agajanian would connect from long range time to time, but both players maxed out at 53 yards.  In 1952, the Chicago Cardinals made just two field goals all season.  That year, the Cleveland Browns used a first round pick on Tennessee defensive back and running back Bert Rechichar.  As a rookie, Rechichar started every game and turned six interceptions; playing in Cleveland with Groza, the idea of Rechichar ever attempting a field goal would have been silly.  But in 1953, the NFL expanded and brought football back to Baltimore.  As a result, Rechichar found his way on the expansion Colts.  In the second quarter of the opening game, he returned an interception for a touchdown to provide the first ever points for the new team.  Teammate Buck McPhail, who was the Colts regular kicker in the preseason, hit the extra point to tie the game at seven apiece.

Then, on the last play of the first half, Baltimore had a decision to make.  McPhail had missed from 45 yards earlier in the game, and so the Colts sent in Rechichar…. to attempt a 56-yard field goal… in his first ever kick in professional football!  As told by the Baltimore Sun, here is what happened next:

Bert told holder Tom Keane: ‘Get that ball down because I got to go to the bathroom.’ Then he drove the kick, on his initial try, clear over the back line from 56 yards. The then-record kick made Rechichar an instant celebrity. And he managed to do it while wearing a regular, soft-toed football shoe, not the box-type of kicking boot he would later use.

A record-setting field goal and a pick six in the same game? Yes, the 1950s were a different game.  And long field goals would remain more a last resort than anything a coach would ever expect to happen.  For the rest of the ’50s and ’60s, the longest successful field goal made was from 55 yards out, done twice.  It was first done by George Blanda in 1961 in a win over the Chargers.  The second time came by a rookie in 1969. His name was Tom Dempsey.

A year later, the Saints Pro Bowl placekicker would kick himself into the history books.  The legend of Dempsey began, well, in the beginning.  He was born with only two fingers on his right hand and half a right foot.  In November 1970, Dempsey’s half a foot proved better than anyone else’s foot in the history of pro football.  Facing the Lions, Dempsey connected on three field goals early in the game, enough to keep the Saints competitive with Detroit. After the Lions went up 17-16 with just 11 seconds remaining, the game looked lost for the home team.

But then Billy Kilmer hit Al Dodd and brought New Orleans to their own 45 yard line with two seconds left.  So the Saints sent out Dempsey — with the goal posts (then still on the end zone line) 55 yards from the line of scrimmage and an unfathomable 63 yards away from the Saints holder, Joe Scarpati, who was kneeling at the Saints 37-yard line.  Dempsey, wearing a special kicking shoe approved by the NFL, won the game on what remains the most shocking field goal in NFL history.

No really, take a minute to watch the video to see how long a 63-yard field goal is!  Dempsey’s kick broke the NFL record by 7 yards, a record of its own that will likely never be broken.

Dempsey sat alone atop the NFL record books for nearly 30 years.  Then in 1998, playing at Mile High Stadium and with the benefit that comes with kicking in Denver, Jason Elam hit a 63-yard field goal on the final play of the first half in a win over the Jaguars.  Thirteen years later, playing on a Monday Night in Denver, Raiders kicker Sebastian Janikowski matched that mark with his own 63-yard field goal on the final play of the first half of a game Oakland would eventually win by three points.  The next season, on the opening game of the 2012 season, 49ers kicker David Akers ended the first half of a win against the 49ers by hitting his own 63-yard field goal, the 4th ever made from that length and just the second outside of Denver.

One year later, on December 8th, 2013, Matt Prater kicked Dempsey out of the top spot.    With Denver down 21-17 in the final seconds of the first half, Prater was sent out to attempt a 64-yard kick.  Prater’s kick just baaarely cleared the cross bar but was a dramatic end to the first half of a game the Broncos would eventually win by 23 points.

Since Prater’s big kick, there had been 8 other field goal tries of at least 64 yards; all eight had failed.  That includes one miss from 65 yards by Justin Tucker, the greatest field goal kicker in the history of the sport.  Tucker is as accurate as any kicker that has ever played, and he has one of the strongest legs in NFL history.  If any kicker could ever challenge the mark, it was going to be Tucker.  But would he get the chance?

There is a lot of risk associated with such a long kick; best-case scenario is a missed field goal gives your opponent the ball in your own territory.  Worst-case scenario is the nightmare return touchdown off of a miss which happened earlier today on a 68-yard field goal try in Jacksonville.  As a result, NFL coaches are reluctant to try extremely long kicks unless it is the end of the half or the game: it is not a coincidence that Rechichar, Dempsey, Elam, Jankowski, Akers, and Prater all had their kicks on the final play of a half.   And so the NFL world — along with Justin Tucker, of course — would have to wait for the most unlikely of scenarios: Baltimore to have the ball, at the end of a half or game, with the ball somewhere between the opponent’s 46 yard line and midfield.  And with no more time to try to gain any additional yards!  Tucker had been not-so-secretly waiting for the opportunity for a long time.

That sort of event would be extremely unlikely to happen with any regularity.  Eight years ago, playing in Detroit, Tucker and the Ravens trailed 16-15 with 38 seconds remaining when the Ravens asked Tucker to try a 61-yarder to win the game.  He, of course, hit it and crushed the hopes of Lions fans.  And then today, the stars aligned perfectly for Tucker in only the second game of his career at Ford Field, clearly his favorite stadium.  Baltimore trailed 17-16 when the Ravens took possession, at their own 25-yard line, with 64 seconds remaining.

A pair of sacks appeared to end their chances: the Ravens sooned faced a 4th-and-19 from their own 16 yard line with 26 seconds left and Baltimore out of timeouts.  But then Lamar Jackson hit Sammy Watkins for 36 yards to keep hope alive. This put the Ravens at the Lions 48-yard line with just 7 seconds remaining. After a spike and an incomplete pass, the Ravens sent out Tucker to try to win the game…. from 66 yards away.  And then Justin Tucker did what was both remarkable — bouncing off the cross-bar and over! — and entirely unremarkable, given the legendary talents of Tucker.  He simply hit a game-winning field goal from the longest distance in NFL history.

JUSTIN TUCKERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR pic.twitter.com/vCsHRtfULo

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 26, 2021

And that is the story of how, 68 years after Bert Rechichar‘s first ever NFL kick, Justin Tucker has brought back the field goal distance record to Baltimore. And in a fitting memory to the late Dempsey, Tucker’s game-winning field goal was against those same Lions, and put his team on top by the very same score: 19-17.