Know Football, Love Football

FOOTBALL BASICS NCAA SPECIAL TEAMS NFL SPECIAL TEAMS

SHARE ON:

BASIC PLACEKICKINGTECHNIQUE: HOW TOKICK FIELD GOALSCHUCK ZODDA — MARCH 2, 2015

LATEST IN

NFL DRAFT

NFL PYLON U FILM STUDY FOOTBALL SCIENCE LONG-FORM BLOG ABOUT ITP

WRITE FOR US

Chuck Zodda is Inside The Pylon’s special teamsexpert, breaking down kickoffs, returns,punts, return blocking, coverage and blockedkicks. This time, Chuck takes you outside the filmroom and onto the practice field for a lesson inbasic placekicking technique. Yes, you too canlearn how to kick field goals ‒ or, at least, betterunderstand how the pros do it.

Field goal kicking is glamorous. That’s what I told myself when I decided to try out for the

Dartmouth football team in the spring of 2006. I envisioned sprinting the length of the field

after game-winning kicks, and practiced my autograph to make sure it would look good on

any object handed to me no matter how irregular the surface.

The reality, of course, is that place kicking is a solitary adventure, with most time spent on

Search

LONG-FORM &EDITORIAL

MEDICINE

empty fields honing your craft. It is all about technique, with repetition and muscle memory

critical to performing the same motion for any kick, regardless of the direction or

conditions.

Orienting Your Kick

The first place to start is with the alignment for the kick. Prior to making any movements,

place your kicking foot with its toe on the exact spot you plan to kick from. Your body should

be aligned with the target, which typically is the center support for the goal posts. However,

in the event that you are kicking at old-school uprights with two support posts structured as

an “H”, simply choose a target aligned with the center of the crossbar:

Doing this ensures that no matter where on the field you kick from, you will use the same

method and not alter your technique. Whether kicking from the left or right hashes,

orienting your body towards the center of your target will allow you to focus on executing an

identical kick every time, as opposed to correcting your leg swing for each kick.

NFL FILM STUDY

Three Steps Back, Two to the Side

The next step in the process is to take the steps required for the eventual approach to the

ball. Prior to the Gogolak brothers – Charlie and Pete – in the 1960s, NFL kickers used a

straight-on style of kicking that was inaccurate and unpredictable. However, with the

Gogolaks showing that soccer-style kicking offered benefits in terms of control and power,

every pro kicker today has adopted the soccer-style approach.

Your first move should be backward, creating distance from your strike point. The method

that produces the fewest question marks in terms of repetition is to simply take three

effortless steps back without stretching. Because leg length tends to be proportional to

overall height, the length of these steps automatically adapts the approach to the individual,

meaning that whether the placekicker is 4’8” and in eighth grade or a 6’5” college player, the

depth of the approach will be correct for their size:

One maneuver that I adopted after reading Ray Guy’s excellent book Football Kicking and

Punting was implementing a rocker step after completing my three-step drop. This involved

rocking back on the heel of my third step, allowing me to maintain a constant length of

stride, while ensuring that I kept properly aligned with my target at this point. After the

rocker step and any correction, both feet should be next to each other at or near the

location where the third step was taken.

From this point, the next direction is sideways. Without turning your body, take two steps to

the side of your plant leg (meaning if you are right-footed, move to your left). It is important

to note that this must be done at a perpendicular angle to your initial steps backward. Thus,

if you are aligning from either of the hashes, the proper setup will help you to automatically

account for the angle, allowing you to utilize the same motion on every kick. These

horizontal steps should be comfortable, but slightly more than shoulder width:

This gives you the angled approach that is favored by soccer-style kickers. This approach

helps create rotational force in your motion, which can be transferred through the ball as

you strike it, allowing you to create power in your kick. It also enables you to strike the ball

with the top of your instep, on the hard bone running down the top of your foot, as opposed

to the toe-poke employed by straight-on kickers, allowing for added control. When you

come to a stop after your setup, you should be positioned in this fashion (reversed for right-

footed kickers):

This creates the ready position, with your plant leg positioned in front of your kicking leg

and your body facing the strike point. Feet should be six to nine inches apart front to back

and shoulder-width. You want a balanced platform that gives you the ability to make an

athletic move.

Pre-Kick Routine

The next step is to get comfortable. Whether you are kicking in front of six people or 60,000,

all eyes are on you when you kick. No one is watching the offensive line. No one is watching

the holder. Everyone is watching the kicker. There are hundreds of ideas floating around

about the “proper” way to focus at this point. None of them are right, as each kicker is

different in their mindset and approach to a kick. Find something that focuses your energy

toward the kick you are about to make.

For me, I would first pick out a target just beyond the uprights as a landmark to focus on. In

the frame below, the center of the scoreboard would make a good reference point:

Next, I would take a deep breath and shift my focus to my strike point. Whether kicking a ball

being snapped to a holder or off a stationary holder (as pictured here), I would place all of

my energy into visualizing the ball and where it was going to be. However, this process can

be different for different people, and I can’t stress this enough. I tried several different

methods before I finally settled on one that was right for me. If working with a full battery of

long snapper and holder, the next move is to signal the holder that he may call for the snap,

and then the kick truly begins.

Approaching the Ball

The first step taken is a jab step with your plant leg. This is a shift of 6 to 12 inches to start

momentum in the direction of the strike point and begin your path to the ball:

In the image above, my right leg is mid-way through my jab step as I start to approach the

kick. My head is down and focused on the strike point.

The second step is longer and builds on the momentum created by the jab step. It is not a

jumping or lunging motion, but simply continues the acceleration towards the ball. You do

not want to have lateral movement at any point throughout your run-up, nor do you want to

be bouncing. It is a smooth movement that moves you at an angle to the strike point so you

can eventually turn that momentum into rotational force:

The above still is just after my second step has planted. I am now preparing for my final

approach to the ball, and the crux of the process.

The Plant Step

The plant step is the most critical part of the approach. It determines whether the kick goes

left or right, high or low, short or far. The ideal plant step for a ball kicked from the ground

will be six to nine inches from the ball, depending on personal preference, with the ball in

line with the arch of your plant foot. For kicks off a one- or two-inch tee, the plant foot will

slide back slightly to account for the extra height.

It is during the plant step that you begin to translate the linear force of your approach into

rotational force, as the plant gives you a point to pivot around as you begin to swing your

kicking leg forward:

Here, my plant leg is firmly stuck in the ground, as I start to clear my hips and rotate through

the ball. My head is down and focused on the contact point, as I look to make strong contact

through the ball. Looking closely, you will note that the ball has a slight tilt away from the my

body, as this helps to negate the hooking tendency that the soccer-style kick produces

because of aerodynamic forces on the ball.

The contact point on your foot should be the hard bone on the top of your instep. The hard

surface allows you to transfer the maximum energy possible through the ball, as you look to

make contact with a point approximately two inches below the widest point of the ball.

Striking below this point will result in a high, rapidly spinning kick with little distance, and

striking above this point will result in a low line-drive kick with little height. As shown below,

my foot strikes just below the midpoint of the ball:

Follow Through

The follow through of your kick helps to give it direction and improve accuracy. You want to

avoid trying to spin through the kick, as this can affect your timing and cause a short slicing

kick or low hooking kick depending on where the error occurs. Rather, the goal should be to

strike with your momentum carrying you through the target, using a skip step if necessary to

maintain your forward momentum through the kick:

Just after contact, my plant leg is still coming off the ground as I begin my follow through.

But just after, my momentum continues through the target, as opposed to spinning off to

the right:

The result here is a made 50-yard field goal, as the practice and repetition of these

techniques helps to develop the consistency to make kicks from nearly anywhere on the

field:

Final Thoughts

This is a basic primer for anyone interested in learning how to kick a football, or gain

familiarity with the techniques used by college and professional kickers. There are

additional techniques and practice strategies that can help you to improve on what is

written here, but the guide that will get you the furthest without requiring any additional

resources is Ray Guy’s book mentioned above. It should be required reading for anyone

interested in becoming a place kicker at any level, and will give you all of the tools to take

these basic techniques to the next level.

Follow Chuck on Twitter @ITP_ChuckZ.

Chuck Zodda is InsideThePylon‘s NFL and college football expert on specialteams, having written about walls of doom, the importance of staying in yourlane, how to fake a punt return, coverage team superstars, the greatest puntreturner of all-time, the humanity of punters, how to block a punt and the

00:00 00:21

FOOTBALL 101 FOOTBALL BAS ICS PLACE KICKING RAY G UY S PE CIAL TE AMS

NEXT POST

Doing the WrongThing: Offseason

Quarterback Moves

Jets.

Chuck ZoddaChuck Zodda was a placekicker for Dartmouth College from 2006-2008. Afterplaying on Saturdays, he decided he wanted his Sundays free, which is whyhe now writes about football on most other days. He is also the only personin the history of video games to create himself as a kicker in every version ofMadden that he owns, and is arguably the most athletic kicker in Ivy League

history.

TAGS:

PREVIOUS POST

NFL Draft Profile:Connecticut CBByron Jones

NO COMMENT

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Name (required)

Facebook

Twitter Google+

reddit Tumblr

E-Mail (required)

Website

SUBMIT COMMENT

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

Copyright © 2015 Inside the Pylon LLC. All rights reserved.