Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. According to Kramer, he “kicked 60-yard field goals like most kids kick extra points.”. He played in 268 regular-season games … Is the NFL conspiring to eliminate kickoffs? There’s no telling how many kicks his left leg has left. The kick at the time matched the NFL record for longest field goal made. This is the longest overtime field goal in NFL history. When he kicked, people came. And so he has moved on, signing a one-year deal with Seattle this offseason. Janikowski had another of those last weekend. In 2011, he tied the NFL record for longest field goal in Denver, Colorado, when he kicked a 63 yard field goal. All rights reserved. He set the team record as time expired in the first half of Sunday's 23-9 loss to the Browns. Sebastian Janikowski injured his thigh while attempting a 57-yard field goal on the last play of the first half, forcing Seattle to ditch extra-point tries. fighting in bars or restaurants, for bribery, for GHB possession, for DUI, the Raiders plan to appeal the spot of the ball. “It was only one year,” Kramer said. Keep in mind that the longest field goal in NFL history is, by comparison, a measly 64 yards. “It’s a great life. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. He’s real shy and quiet, but he’s having fun with the fellas. On October 19, 2008, Janikowski broke his own Raiders team record, making a 57-yard field goal in overtime to defeat the New York Jets, 16–13, the longest overtime field goal in NFL history. The longest field goal attempt (unofficial): 76 yards. But noted football physicist Timothy Gay has told me that while he thinks altitude helps kickoffs and punts carry four or five yards farther, he’s not convinced it has any effect on shorter field goals and only a small one on longer kicks. Before he led Brad Cejka and his groomsmen into the church for the ceremony, said pastor decided to cut the tension with some casual conversation. Talk about having the clutch gene, even if it wasn’t the longest field goal of all time (kudos to Prater). “We started practice back then at 3 o’clock,” Kramer said, “And at 3 o’clock around our field there would be cars lined up at the fence to watch him warm up — to watch him come out and just go through 15 or 20 minutes of special (teams drills).”. Janikowski’s coaches aren’t the only ones who seem more willing to let kickers go long. All rights reserved. He’s 11th all time in career scoring and 10th all time in field goals made. Dempsey’s holder, Joe Scarpati, clearly places the ball on the Saints’$2 37-and-a-quarter-yard line—the goalposts were on the goal line in those days—for what would measure out to a 62-and-three-quarters-yards kick. (The school was named Seabreeze, after all.). Somehow, Seabass — who Cejka eliminated from best-man consideration because “I knew he wouldn’t want to give a speech” — feels most comfortable under a sizzling spotlight, with an entire stadium holding its breath. Granted, there was no pass rush and no crowd noise, the high-school football is smaller and lighter, and he hit the ball off of a tee, which usually adds some extra distance. The Longest Field Goal in College Football History. And, while he’s had a reputation as a meathead troublemaker, Janikowski hasn’t been arrested—not for fighting in bars or restaurants, for bribery, for GHB possession, for DUI, or anything else!—since 2003. Summary; Career; Logs; Splits; Situational; Kicking YEAR TEAM G 1-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50+ FGM FG ATT … Choose the plan that’s right for you. He has gotten older, and he has grown up, and those are two very different things. (“I did not (hit it clean),” he confirmed last week, shaking his head. Neither Janikowski nor Lechler appears to have complained after the game. So how do Dempsey, Elam, and Janikowski measure up? “But, man oh man, what a year.”. “What’s the longest field goal you ever kicked?”. Added former Seabreeze head football coach Kerry Kramer: “Yeah, without a shadow of a doubt.”, It’s a testament to Janikowski’s legendary left leg that his list of accomplishments read more like tall tales. “The percentage was low, but it was possible,” he said afterward. Sebastian Janikowski tied an NFL record with a 63-yard field goal at the end of the first half, helping the Oakland Raiders to a 16-3 lead over the Denver Broncos on Monday night. Surely Janikowski — who missed his first two field goals last weekend, then connected on a 40-yarder and a 52-yarder as time expired to lift the Seahawks over the Cardinals and possibly save his job — wouldn’t lie to a man of the cloth? he NFL record for the longest field goal in league history was a 64-yarder kicked by then-Broncos kicker Matt Prater in Denver back in 2013. But while another 82-yarder might be a stretch, 65 isn’t out of the question. “My first five, six years (in the NFL) I wasn’t there mentally. In other words, round down. As the story goes, Janikowski was cranking field goals one day in practice, moving five yards back with each punishing wallop. The kicks count.). I have no idea whether the rule was the same in 1970, but I sure hope the league rounded up back then. This is the longest overtime field goal in NFL history. Most field goals in one quarter: 4 (There was a tie) Most field goals attempted of 60+ yards in a career: 8. Get the latest news, stats, videos, highlights and more about place kicker Sebastian Janikowski on ESPN. Join Slate Plus to continue reading, and you’ll get unlimited access to all our work—and support Slate’s independent journalism. Would that make Janikowski’s kick a record-setting 64-yarder? So, naturally, I spent the morning deconstructing the video of Sebastian Janikowski’s record-tying 63-yard field goal in the Raiders’$2 23-20 win over the Broncos in Denver. He shared the record for the longest field goal at 63 yards until Matt Prater hit his 64-yarder in 2013. During his senior season in 1996, Janikowski routinely sent kickoffs through the big H on the opposite end of the field. You can’t tell with certainty from ESPN’s long-distance shot of the actual kick whether Lechler actually hits his mark. Sebastian Janikowski was born on March 2, 1978 as an only child to Henryk and Halina Janikowski in Wałbrzych, Poland. Both Tom Dempsey’s and Graham Gano’s 63-yard field goal were game-winning field goals as time expired. Eric Decker returned a punt 90 yards for a touchdown to help Denver get within 16-13 of Oakland through three quarters Monday night in a game that featured Sebastian Janikowski's NFL record-tying 63-yard field goal. By that definition, Janikowski’s kick of 63 plus an inch or two is officially 63—and Dempsey’s should be 62. “I mean, he’s really having fun. That he was the rare kicker selected in the first round of the NFL draft only made the mockery easier. “If any point of the football when kicked rests on or above any yard stripe, credit distance from that yard stripe,” the rulebook states. Janikowski has a monster leg. All contents © 2020 The Slate Group LLC. RELATED: Female Kicker Nails 55-Yard Field Goal With Nasty Crosswind Trailing 21-17 at the end of the first half, the Denver Broncos sent out kicker Matt Prater to make his second field goal of the game.It was a gamble, no doubt, but it was worth the chance to cut the Tennessee Titans lead and go into halftime at Sport Authority Field at Mile High with some momentum. Janikowski already owns multiple league records, including a share of the mark for the longest field goal made at 63 yards. The longest field goal kick in NFL history is 64 yards, a record set by Matt Prater on December 8, 2013.The previous record was 63, originally set by Tom Dempsey (1970) and then matched by Jason Elam (1998), Sebastian Janikowski (2011), David Akers … Dempsey’s kick was the most dramatic (a game winner, albeit in a meaningless game, not that you’d know it from the fantastic play-by-play call) and a record-destroyer (the previous long was 56 yards, by Bert Rechichar of the Baltimore Colts in 1953). Will kickers blast it out of the end zone or loft it to the goal line? You may now resume discussing Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, because we don’t get nearly enough of that. When I faux-kicked for the Broncos in training camp in 2006, my personal-best 40-yarders (on an empty practice field) felt like Super Bowl winners. But when a football is snapped on target—and this one was—the placement of the ball by NFL holders is extremely accurate. On December 27, 2009, he again broke his own team record and made a 61-yard field goal against the Cleveland Browns before halftime. When Tom Dempsey set the NFL record with a 63-yard field goal in 1970, it was stunning because it was seven yards farther than anyone had ever kicked a … His longest came in 2011 when he booted a 63-yarder against the Denver Broncos at Mile High to end the second half of a Raiders win. And if the ball’s nose was indeed set down beyond the 47-yard line? “It’s crazy,” Janikowski said of his 22-year journey. Most field goals of 50+ yards in a career: 58. He also tied the then-NFL record for the longest successful field goal at 63 yards, which is the second-longest in league history. I’ve always loved how the official bends down as the ball descends to make sure he sees it travel above the bar. The ball flies through the goalposts several feet above the crossbar and is dropped by a ball boy about six feet out of the end zone. It’s difficult to tell precisely from this video, but Broncos holder Tom Rouen’s spot of Elam’s kick appears to be on the front edge of the hashmark at the Broncos’$2 47-yard line. He can tell you about the time, as a teenager, that he took a free kick in a soccer game and struck the ball with such velocity that it shattered an opponent’s arm. If you value our work, please disable your ad blocker. And you'll never see this message again. You can cancel anytime. “I couldn’t even figure out how to put shoulder pads on.”, Added Kramer: “It was basically, ‘Kick it through that big H down there,’ and he understood that.”. Since leaving Seabreeze, Janikowski has become the first player to win the Lou Groza Award — which honors college football’s premier placekicker — twice. That Janikowski did what he did last night should surprise absolutely no one. That tied the longest field goal in NFL history. Digital access or digital and print delivery. But Janikowski gets Longest Actual Kick by Field Yardage. K Info; Stats; Advertising. The kicker played at Abilene Christian back in the 1970s when the Wildcats were still a NAIA school. It put him just one yard ahead of the previous record of 63 yards, which was held by several kickers including longtime former Raiders specialist Sebastian Janikowski. The kick at the time matched the NFL record for longest field goal made. Sebastian Janikowski already impressed players and fans alike with his 61-yard field goal, but he outdid himself two years later. Keep in mind this was 1970—the longest field goal in league history at the time belonged to Bert Rechichar of the then-Baltimore Colts at a whopping … After a disastrous first half in which he missed both a 38- and 52-yard attempt, the 19th-year veteran rebounded, drilling a 40-yarder in the third quarter and the go-ahead 52-yard field goal as time expired. He helped Florida State secure a national championship in 1999, and the following spring became the first kicker (before or since) to be selected in the first round of the NFL draft. Longest field goal: 63: Touchbacks: 437: Player stats at NFL.com: Player stats at PFR: Graham Clark Gano (born April 9, 1987) is a Scottish-American professional American football placekicker for the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL). Not every kicker is confident enough to do that, and most coaches are too risk-averse to attempt superlong field goals at any time other than the end of the half or regulation, and even then they’ll usually opt for the even lower-probability end-zone jump ball. Unfortunately, Sebastian’s most improbable kick didn’t garner much of an audience. “I was learning as I went,” said Janikowski, who had never previously played football and didn’t know the rules. NFL rules are clear. Yay! On October 19, 2008, Janikowski broke his own team record, making a 57-yard field goal in overtime to defeat the New York Jets, 16–13. Watching a long field goal gets me so fired up I want to dust off my football kicking holder and bang a few through the uprights myself. On October 19, 2008, Janikowski broke his own team record, making a 57-yard field goal in overtime to defeat the New York Jets, 16–13. Or, say, the first time he kicked a football. “He doesn’t say a whole lot. It was May 1995, and Janikowski — who had come to the United States from Poland the year before — was a junior at Seabreeze, when one of his friends on the soccer team convinced him to sample a different sport. He missed a 70-yard field goal wide during a game in the spitting rain … but the kick had plenty of distance. And now Sea Bass joins a club consisting of Jason Elam of the Broncos, who made his kick in the same circumstances (the last play of the first half) in the same city against the Jaguars in October 1998, and the Saints’ stub-footed Tom Dempsey, who made a last-second game-winner in New Orleans against the Lions in November 1970. “Eighty-two yards in high school,” Janikowski responded, without a hint of hesitation. (If we did footnotes like other sports sites, this would be one: Sure, Elam’s and Janikowski’s kicks were made in mile-high Denver, and probably traveled a skosh farther in the thin air than they would have elsewhere. You grow up a lot faster,” said Janikowski, who has a wife and three kids, not to mention a Polynesian symbol that means “family” tattooed across his shoulders. “I know this is really cliche, but I’ve never — to this day — heard a ball sound the way it sounded. “I had parents from other schools call and ask what time our early (warm-up) groups went out,” Kramer said, “Because their son played at a different school but they wanted to come over and watch Sebastian go through his pregame, just to watch him kick.”. Finally, Janikowski’s ball clears the crossbar by more than Dempsey’s but by less than Elam’s. (Elam told me that Rouen looked up at him just before the snap and said, “You know this is for the record, don’t you?”) So the make was an honest 63 yards. Along with Matt Prater’s 64-yarder, Jason Elam and Sebastian Janikowski both hit their long … Basically, the … Otherwise? SEATTLE — The pastor asked Sebastian Janikowski a question on his best friend’s wedding day. (Janikowski said he “didn’t hit it that good.”) So Elam wins Longest Distance Traveled by Ball. Watch Raiders holder Shane Lechler’s right hand in the first two seconds of the video. (NFL hashmarks are four inches thick.) “I said, ‘Sure,’ and he put a ball down,” Kramer said. But everything moves on.”. Now Janikowski has his name in the record book: He’s the only player in NFL history with two field goals of 60-plus yards, and he has a field goal as long as any NFL player has ever kicked. Surely Janikowski — who missed his first two field goals last … So it’s only a matter of time before someone goes longer than 63. Five of the nine 60-plus-yarders in NFL history have occurred since 2006. Which is very Raiders, of course, and also very futile (which is also very Raiders). They came from all over — and not just college recruiters. Sebastian Janikowski kicked a 61-yard field goal with maybe a yard of clearance to spare. 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