NFL Kicker Breaks Down The Science of a Field Goal

ball is spotted the kick is away and the kick is it's gone did it again puts the toe on it and the kick is gone what's up everybody this is the field goal kicking Eagles hey everybody this is the Philadelphia Eagles field goal operation I'm Jake Elliott I'm Rick lado I'm Braden man Jake Elliot 56 yds Bingo he is outstanding we're going to take through kind of the anatomy and what goes into kicking a field goal today everything's got to be just exactly perfect the speed of the snap from Rick how quickly Braden gets it down like there's so many little details and we have less than 1.3 seconds all right first we're just going to set up a standard extra point which is a 33 yard field goal now in the middle of the field so as the beginning of the operation my job is to throw a perfect ball back to Braden with laces and right over the spot so it's around two and a half rotations to get back to bradden he wants to catch the ball right over the spot with laces every single time so he could just put it down so for me I treat it as a free throw my feet are always in the same position I always have the ball in the same spot every single time my heel is usually right at the end of the hash I don't want to be rotated this way and I don't want to be over rotated that way always having a straight back straight arms and looking through to my target it's my job as to Holders to receive the ball as you can see most the time Rick is pretty much perfect but it's my job if any weather conditions or anything else come up if it's a little bit of low snap High snap whatever get the ball down in the same spot for Jake if we're outside beautiful day like today get down on the ground get the laces pointed towards the middle of the uprights for Jake and the lean is going to be a little bit forward and a little bit sideways so if those things go well then we should have a great kick down the middle all right so once we're ready to go we're going to pick out a spot that I feel good about make sure there's no divots around or anything like that going take three steps back line up exactly where I want that ball to go find a Target behind the upright take two steps over one more look back down at Braden where my spot is exactly so I find my line visualize where that ball is going to go through one last time back down and we ready to [Music] go ball is spotted the kick is away it's got the distance and it is good yes all right so now we got a right hash kick from 40 yards wind and weather always play a factor especially in the Northeast here so the wind's coming left to right right here so we're going to aim just a hair left probably two three yards off center in in hopes that that Ball's going to fade back to the middle so at this distance I'm always set up the same as usual but when there's wind or when there's rain it's a little bit harder to grab that ball and snap it to Braden I'm following through with my hands to make sure I'm getting the same exact rotation so this kick from this hash is a little bit different we are on the right hash fighting a wind going left to right so basically everything we want to think of as a straight kick except we're just tilting everything to the left now to try and fight that wind to play it back inside so for us I tilt the ball a little bit less towards me and more towards Jake so when I put on the ground it's still forward and then instead of coming over here that ball is tilted more towards Jake's Direction that'll help fight the crosswind that we're going to have Jake is going to be aimed a little bit left of center on this one so that means my ball and my body has to be pointed left to Center to make it a straight kick for Jake I'm changing my target line left to Center here so as you can see I'm about in the middle of the hash we're going to kick off the side of the hash here the challenges for me are trying to hit a pure ball cuz if it's not a pure good ball strike that wind's going to take over immediately Raiden helps a lot with that by how he adjusts the [Music] ball so as you can see there it kind of started left center of the uprights once it passed through it was a good piercing ball so it got there fast and then it started fading over towards the right at the end so our Target line was the right line we picked a good line we hit our Target and successful kick 61 yds it's St he did it again now we're all the way back at 60 yards um like we talked about earlier still fighting a left to right wind and a little bit in the face so we really got to drive this ball so what's going to change here is bradden's going to angle it a little bit more forward I'm going to raise my sweet spot on the ball just a little bit try to hit a slower rotating ball that's going to drive through that wind so like you saw there we still had a little left to right movement bradden helped me out a lot with the lean forward Rick threw a perfect snap back with the laces 12:00 hit a good driving ball that got there with a little bit spare thanks for watching guys as you can see a lot of intricacies that go into a whole field goal operation next time your team sets up for a field goal hopefully you guys can appreciate it just a little bit more [Music]