Should Vikings Fans Worry About Will Reichard?
Credit: Matt Krohn-Imagn Images
If you told me last year that a rookie kicker for the Minnesota Vikings would become a fan favorite, there’s no way I would’ve believed you. Especially if you told me that guy would be one the Vikings actually spent a draft pick on. But Will “The Thrill” Reichard exceeded my low expectations and started off the year on fire, going 14-for-14 on his field goal attempts through Week 8. Reichard has the most field goals made without a miss to start a rookie season in franchise history. The Alabama product was a baby-faced assassin, proving to be the exception to the rule when it comes to Vikings rookie kickers.
Some of these are actually pretty tough though… pic.twitter.com/RDsFcxL7yp
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) September 10, 2024
Reichard’s perfect start to his career became a problem for the football gods. One of the 10 NFL Commandments states that the Vikings are not allowed to have elite, clutch kickers. They had no option but to nerf Will The Thrill, smiting him with a quad injury to his kicking leg which landed him on injured reserve for a few weeks. Since coming back from injury in Week 14, Reichard’s has been shaky, with the rookie only making seven of his 10 field goal attempts.
Of those three misses, two of them came last week in Minnesota’s 27-25 win over the Green Bay Packers. Will’s first miss of the game came on a 57-yard field goal attempt where he didn’t put quite enough leg on the kick, and his second miss of the day was from 43 yards out. Both of them hit the crossbar. With the Vikings traveling to Detroit for an incredibly high-stakes game that will determine the winner of the NFC North and the No. 1 seed, should Vikings fans be panicking about Reichard’s recent slump?
During Tuesday’s press conference, special teams coordinator Matt Daniels shut down theories that suggested Reichard hasn’t been fully healthy since being activated off injured reserve. “Will Reichard is not injured. He’s perfectly fine.” Daniels said. “There’s no excuses there in terms of an injury being a reason why he missed that field goal [or why he] missed a 57-yarder or anything like that. He’s perfectly fine and healthy.”
- This makes Reichard’s struggles as of late even more confounding. If he is no longer feeling the effects of the quad injury and has been healthy long enough to shake off the rust, then why is he still struggling? It’s hard to come up with another explanation than the 10 NFL Commandments dictating so. The Vikings are cursed at the kicker position. Whether it’s Gary Anderson’s fateful lone miss in the 1998 NFC Championship Game, Daniel Carlson turning into prime Sebastian Janikowski after joining the Raiders, or Blair Walsh shanking a game-winning 27-yarder wide left against the Seattle Seahawks in the 2012 Wild Card Round.
On this date 8 years ago Blair Walsh missed a 27 yard field goal in the Wild Card Playoff Game vs. Seattle.
It was the 3rd coldest game in NFL history. pic.twitter.com/YxfsLmEnhz
— Vikeologist™ (@Vikeologist) January 10, 2024
We are two weeks removed from the Vikings winning their first game in Seattle since 2006 (which is pretty cool if you ask me!). Minnesota won that game by a field goal, and last week they beat the Packers by a two-point margin. So over the last couple of weeks, the Vikings’ games have been decided by three points or less. That means Reichard has very little room for error against a red-hot Lions offense that is more than capable of making this a tightly-contested game throughout the full 60 minutes.
Fortunately, Reichard has plenty of experience in high-stakes games that were decided by three points or less. In his five seasons as a starter for the Alabama Crimson Tide, Reichard finished with a 6-3 record in games that were decided by a three-point margin. In those games, Will Reichard made 19 of his 21 field goal attempts, including a 33-yard game-winner against the Texas Longhorns. Reichard also made all of his extra point attempts in those close games going 26-for-26, and has yet to miss an extra point since joining the Minnesota Vikings. (Editors Note: If he misses one Sunday, Tyler is fired.)
You can hear Chris Stewart in the background of the press box view of Alabama’s Will Reichard kicking the game-winner at Texas. pic.twitter.com/h7fcBHkNnt
— Michael Casagrande (@ByCasagrande) September 12, 2022
Perhaps one of the most underrated traits that Will The Thrill possesses is that he’s very stoic and doesn’t seem to let nerves get to him. In the past, it felt like the Vikings employed kickers like the temperamental Walsh, or someone like Greg Joseph, who came across as someone with an anxious personality. It’s nice to have a kicker who has surgical precision and is seemingly unfazed even in the biggest moments. Reichard has a quiet confidence about him that makes me feel less nervous whenever he attempts a field goal.
Minnesota really needs their kicker to use those mental skills to lock in for their heavyweight bout against the Detroit Lions on Sunday Night Football. It’s not hyperbole to suggest that this game has the highest stakes out of any Week 18 matchup in NFL history, because of how rare it is to have two division rivals fight for the No. 1 seed in the last week of the regular season. This game is likely to come down to the wire and if you’re the Vikings (or one of their fans), you don’t want to be thinking to yourself: “If only Reichard made that field goal…”
Up Next