How To Become An NFL Kicker

Last Updated on October 31, 2023 by Alex PT

To become an NFL kicker, practice kicking field goals and kickoffs regularly, perfect your accuracy, and build leg strength. Attend kicking camps, showcase your skills in college football, and aim for a high accuracy percentage to gain NFL attention.

This table includes how far you have to kick to become an NFL kicker and few types of kicking camps a kicker could attend. 

How Far Do You Have To Kick To Become An NFL Kicker	Few Distinct Kinds Of kicking Camps A kicker Could Attend
Starters – 30 yards	Instructional Kicking Camps
Averages – 50 yards	College Kicking Camps
Pros – 60 yards plus	Competition Kicking Camps

How To Become An NFL Kicker

1. Understand The Role of a Kicker
A kicker in NFL is primarily responsible for field goals, kick-offs, and extra points after touchdowns. The role demands precision and consistent high performance under intense pressure.

2. Begin Early
Becoming an NFL player is a long journey that ideally begins in high school or early college years. Aspiring kickers should participate in local football activities and train rigorously to refine their skills.

3. Master The Basics
Kicking skills need both practice and technique. Aspiring kickers must hone their ability to kick the ball long distances, practice their accuracy and refine their approach toward the ball.

4. Physical Conditioning
Maintaining top physical condition is crucial for sustained success in NFL. This means rigorous training routines, a balanced diet, adequate recovery periods and regular medical check-ups.

5. Gain Competitive Experience
In addition to kicking practice and physical conditioning, gaining competitive experience by playing in school and college leagues is crucial. This presents opportunities for real-world application of skills and encourages strategic thinking.

6. Attend Kicking Camps
Multiple kicking camps across the country provide directed training programs, often led by ex-NFL professionals. These provide a valuable platform for refining skills, gaining exposure, and accessing networking opportunities.

7. Get Recruited
Standout performances in high school or college football can attract attention from college scouts or NFL recruiters. Be ready to seize such opportunities.

8. Try Out For The NFL
When ready, aspiring kickers can try out for the NFL. They can either enter the NFL Draft – where teams pick new talent each year, or go through signing as an undrafted free agent.

9. Stay Focused and Persistent
Finally, becoming an NFL Kicker is about more than skill and talent; it demands grit, persistence, and a positive mindset. Learning to handle failures and keep morale high is an unseen but crucial part of the journey.

10. Keep Learning and Improving
Even after becoming an NFL kicker, the job does not end. Continuous improvement and staying on top of new tactics and strategies ensures a long and successful career.

How Far Do You Have To Kick To Become An NFL Kicker

Field goal range is the section of the field in American football, in which there are great odds that a field goal effort will succeed.

A field goal is generally 17 yards (7 meters in Canadian football ) more than the distance from this line of scrimmage to the goal line, since it comprises the end zone (10 yards) and 7 meters to where the holder lays the ball.  In Canadian football, the goal posts are about the goal lines, in the front of the end zones.  Consequently, in the event the line of scrimmage is in the 30, the field goal will be 47 meters (in American football ) or 37 yards (in Canadian football ).

The precise field goal range changes for every group, based on the capability of the team’s placekicker. While some poorer placekickers might have difficulty kicking field goals longer than 30 yards (making field goals from outside the 13 yard ), others might always make 50-yarders, which makes it sensible to kick from outside the 33.  For many NFL kickers, the 35-yard lineup is typically the limitation of the field goal range. Weather conditions, especially wind, also have a substantial effect on field goal measurement; kicking with the wind in the kicker’s back considerably increases field goal range, while kicking from the wind or using a stiff crosswind can significantly lessen the kicker’s successful range, while generally there’s absolutely no benefit beyond ensured scoring of a kick if a game has been played inside. 

Heavy snowfall can considerably reduce field goal range, either by weighing down the ball and making it more challenging to receive a secure spotting of the ball or adequate momentum at the run-up.  Altitude also affects kicking variety; the longest punt in NFL history and three of the biggest field goal at NFL history happened in Denver, Colorado, which is greater than 4,000 ft (1,200 m) higher in altitude than the next-highest NFL town (the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Arizona).  In the 1970s through the 1990s, artificial turf enhanced a kicker’s field goal range with less friction throughout the kick; a few reason Scott Norwood missed the game-winning kick in Super Bowl XXV was that he kicked artificial turf at Buffalo and fought with more extended field goals on organic marijuana during his career, and Super Bowl XXV was performed on a grass surface. 

(Modern artificial turf, that has comparable thickness and attributes into natural grass, doesn’t have an significant impact on kick range.)

In high school football, players are allowed to kick off a particular level kicking tees around 2 inches high.  The NCAA banned the use of kicking tees in 1989.  The majority of the longer-range field goals in NCAA history have been kicked before the removal of trees; the usage of tees enabled the ball to be raised from the field ‘at turf or grass, reducing friction at the opening milliseconds of their kick and permitting longer kicks.

Few Kicking Tips To Become An NFL Kicker

Ordinarily, during winter and spring, you concentrate would be to develop into a better overall athlete whilst building your kick up volume slowly and kicking largely “top ball strikes” (as high as much as you can.  At some stage in late spring, then you’re likely to boost your amount of kicks, scale back to other kinds of instruction, and integrate specific kicks your staff will use throughout the season — profound left kickoffs.  Pop upward kickoffs, distinct punts you will use, etc..

For detailed preparation program, Click the record in my demonstration to Michigan High School Football Coaches

Which kicking camp would be the most suitable one for me personally?

There Are Numerous Distinct Kinds of kicking camps a kicker could attend:

1. College Kicking Camps

2. Showcase/Competition Kicking Camps

3. Instructional Kicking Camps

1. College Kicking Camps: These are hosted on school campuses from the schools themselves — typically in the summertime.  The purpose of those camps is to assess prospects which the college is recruiting.  You may experience little to no schooling.  If you’re entering your junior or your senior season of high school, and you’ve got an interest at the college hosting the camp, then go.  However, if you’re a high school sophomore or younger, then there’s not any purpose in attending those unless you would like to marvel in the centers and get a complimentary t-shirt (not free as you will cover at least 120 to attend).

2. Showcase/Competition Kicking Camps: There are several private kicking organizations that operate these kinds of kicking events.  They are normally paired with a few sort of ranking system, site profile site, and faculty referrals.  Very similar to faculty kicking camps, there’s hardly any education that occurs.  You may chart and have assessed multiple times.  Parents and kickers ought to be aware there aren’t any school coaches at any personal kicking camp.  Each of the testimonials is done through video, personal recommendation, email, profile pages, etc..

There’s not any requirement to attend these kicking events before your sophomore year.  College coaches don’t care that the highest rated freshmen or sophomores are.  In the event you would like to attend as a young kicker just for pleasure, there’s very little damage that may come from it.  1 thing you ought to know about organizations which produce their profit from positions is that in the event that you don’t appear to a number of events each year, your rank will fall, irrespective of your abilities.  So be ready to keep dumping money into it.  With traveling expenses, your yearly cost will vary between $2,000 to $10,000.  My guidance to kickers and parents that do not feel like wasting cash would be to…develop abilities (65-yard kickoffs, 50+ yard field objectives, 45+ yard punts, excellent technique), then begin attending those in the summer before your junior year.  Attend some early on.  And after that raise frequency following your junior period — approximately about January.

3. Instructional Kicking Camps: These are kicking occasions where athletes struggle to better their abilities.  When choosing which camp to attend, then you need to think about the size of this camp, the expertise of trainers, camp grade (difficult to understand without expertise or a mention ), and closeness to the kicking coach.  It’s essential to be near, or have easy access to a kicking coach since you’ll be navigating your kicking journey solo for the most part.  A kicking trainer has expertise and perspective to guide you and answer some queries you will have over the way.  While I get a question about training from the West coast or someplace outside Midwest, I usually counsel a kicker to discover a local kicking trainer which will have the ability to give year-round support and coaching.

Many kickers make a mistake by focusing too much on rivals and insufficient on their ability development — rivalry with themselves.  To be able to satisfy your kicking potential, you need to keep enhancing your kicking skills each time which you kick, all year round.  Staying the Very Same way that You’re moving backward in relation to your opponents That Are improving (this really is a saying I heard from Roger Federer, among the top tennis players from the world

Were NFL Kickers All Amazing When They Were Young Kickers?

In the event that you watched Super Bowl LIII on February 3rd 2019, you saw four pros who weren’t highly recruited coming out of high school.  But now, four of these have 30+ seasons of NFL experience and more cash in their bank account than many developing nations.

That is where they had been 1818-year-oldsoming from high school:

Greg Zuerlein — Kicker/LA Rams — Accepted a partial scholarship to a little division two college — University of Nebraska at Omaha.  This college dropped their football program two years in his school career.  Greg moved to a different D2 college, performed nicely and got drafted by the Rams.

Stephen Gostkowski — Kicker/NE Patriots — Accepted a baseball scholarship at Memphis college and walked on a football team to win the task and finally get drafted by the Patriots.

Johnny Hekker — Punter/LA Rams — Walked on Oregon State University, won the project along with a scholarship.  He didn’t get drafted in the NFL.  Johnny fought his way to acquire the task as a very long shot free agent.  Now he’s the best punter in the NFL and holder of numerous NFL records.

Ryan Allen — Punter/NE Patriots — Walked to Oregon State University where he dropped the punting battle.  Transferred to Louisiana Tech, where he played tremendously and got a tryout with the Patriots upon graduating.  He overcomes a 3-year veteran NFL punter to acquire the occupation.

Long story short large school children…if you played with many sports in high school and didn’t concentrate on kicking…in case you didn’t begin playing football until later in high school…in case you didn’t invest upwards of $10,000 each year on various ranking camps to have noticed….if you didn’t find many chances to kick in matches….if you didn’t encourage yourself sharply to schools…if you concentrated your attention and efforts to schools which weren’t interested in you…in case you didn’t grow physically until afterwards…you could have slipped through the cracks and weren’t provided a scholarship coming from high school.  But if you train regularly, consistently and intelligently, you can defeat this little bump in the road and prevail in the long run.  Keep kicking!

Which Are The Best Cleats For Kicking/Punting?

Football cleats are the most appropriate for kicking and punting.  Most pro kickers put on a leather football cleat that’s simple in setup.  If you’re just a kicker or just a punter without needing to play different places, you can wear two distinct shoes.  The square-foot shoe is generally a football cleat with great support and traction.  The kicking foot shoe is tight tight-fitting leather football cleat.  Aim to get 1.5 to 2.5 sizes smaller than your regular walking shoe.

Should you play with other places, and you need to wear football cleats, select an easy, low-top shoe that isn’t overly stiff.

Nike Tiempo cleats would be the most popular kicking cleats right now.  There are infinite variations of leather and design.  Select the one that works the right for you.

Kicker from the film demonstrates how kicking shoes must match — tight, easy, and comfortable, with dramatic surface vulnerable.

Final Words

The final session reached! We hope you’re now familiar with how to become an NFL kicker. We also hope that all the vast information in this article was helpful.

References:

https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-become-a-kicker-in-the-NFL
https://www.adultsplaysports.com/train-with-an-nfl-kicker/