A lot of folks believe Adam Vinatieri could one day become the first-ever placekicker to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He’s certainly one of the most clutch and consistent kickers in league history, which explains why he’s lasted 21 years in this league.
But Vinatieri wasn’t always a star. In fact, he almost never had a chance to become what he now is.
New York sports radio host Mike Francessa, who has a close relationship with Bill Parcells, pointed out this week that after the undrafted rookie missed three of his first five field-goal attempts in 1996, Parcells threatened to cut Vinatieri.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio relays the story from Francessa:
Vinatieri missed three field goals in Week Two of his rookie season, and in Week Three he missed his first field goal attempt and an extra point attempt. And so, late in the fourth quarter of a game the Patriots were winning 28-0, Parcells went to Vinatieri on the sideline with a little test to see how much intestinal fortitude he had: Parcells told Vinatieri that he was going to go into the game to attempt a 31-yard field goal with his job on the line. If Vinatieri missed, Parcells told him, he was getting cut. Vinatieri made the kick.
“I’ve had it with that kicker,” Parcells said, according to Francessa. “If he had missed it I would have cut him. And I told him, ‘You better make this kick’ before I sent him out there. And he made the kick, and he gained confidence little by little, and look who he became.”
What he became is one of the best kickers in NFL history. If he had missed that kick, it probably would have ended his career right there: Undrafted rookie kickers who miss five field goals and an extra point in their first three games usually don’t get a second chance.
Thing is, Vinatieri still continued to struggle at times. He was absolutely a late-bloomer.
- When he began to establish himself as a clutch kicker by hitting the Super Bowl winner from 48 yards out in 2002, he was 29 years old and had yet to make a Pro Bowl.
- In his rookie season, he missed seven of 16 field-goal attempts beyond 40 yards and ranked 21st in the NFL with a success rate of 77.1 percent.
- That rate, which is 88.7 over his most recent six seasons, was just 80.4 over the course of his first six NFL campaigns, ranking in the middle of the pack among active kickers during that stretch. He ranked out of the top 10 in terms of field goal percentage in five of those six seasons.
- He even missed three of his nine playoff field-goal attempts prior to the 2001 season. But he’s hit 85 percent of his playoff kicks since then.
Something clicked after that first Super Bowl winner, and he made at least 89 percent of his kicks in three of his next five seasons, making the Pro Bowl twice. And he’s been steady ever since.
Good thing Parcells wasn’t slightly less patient.
