After another remarkable miss by Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker in Week 9, a 51-yard field goal that missed in good conditions, it felt like it was the end of the line for the Chiefs’ long-time kicker.
That was not the case. Head coach Andy Reid is standing by Kansas City’s three-time Super Bowl champion placekicker.
“As far as the kicking part goes, I’m going to stick with Butker this week,” Reid shared during the opening statement of his Wednesday press conference. “And we’ll go from there.”
The miss was Butker’s seventh of the season, and put his field-goal percentage at a league-low 63% among active kickers; former Los Angeles Rams kicker — who was hosted by Kansas City for a tryout before Justin Tucker was signed — is the only qualified kicker with a lower rate (56%).
Still, Reid is loyal to Butker because of his history of clutch kicks in Kansas City. The 31-year-old has been doing it since the first game of his Chiefs career, a “Monday Night Football” game against Washington in 2017; Butker hit a 43-yard field goal with less than five seconds to go to clinch a victory after being signed from the Carolina Panthers’ practice squad earlier that year.
“Harrison has done such a great job for us over time here,” Reid said. “Sometimes, you go through these little peaks and valleys things. So you have to give him a chance to work through them; we’ll see how things go.”
Whether Kansas City’s patience with Butker will pay off remains to be seen; it feels like the team is waiting to react to a disastrous miss instead of being proactive with one of the league’s least accurate kickers over the last two years.
When asked about the length of the leash Butker has moving forward, Reid moved on from the topic.
“I’m not going there,” Reid responded.
Any of the other 32 NFL teams can sign Justin Tucker off Kansas City’s practice squad at any moment. In Week 10, Reid all but confirmed the Chiefs would not be one of those teams, and Kansas City will kick this problem down the road another week.
