John Smith, a man with a common name and an uncommon tale, would like you to know that NFL kickers are not that much better than they were in his day,
It is a sketchy premise from which to operate, seeing as somebody seems to nail a 60-yard field goal every other week. Also because kickers gravitate toward their specialty at a younger age than ever, and receive far more position-specific instruction and training than Smith did when he was kicking for the New England Patriots (1974-83).
Smith, a native of England who found himself in the NFL through sheer happenstance, nonetheless believes, and believes strongly, that those with a soccer background like his have (you should pardon the expression) a leg up on those that do not.
And, well, he might have a point.
At least to a point.
A recent story in The Athletic noted that many factors have contributed to kickers’ increased proficiency. New Orleans’ Tom Dempsey kicked a 63-yarder in 1970, a record that stood until Denver’s Matt Prater connected from 64 in 2013. But that record has fallen twice in the last five years. Baltimore’s Justin Tucker hit a 66-yarder in 2021 and on Nov. 2 of this year Jacksonville’s Cam Little drilled a 68-yarder. (He was also true from 70 in a preseason game over the summer.)
In all there have been 46 field goals of 60 yards or longer in NFL history, 24 since 2020. The above factors have certainly contributed to that, as has a new NFL rule, just instituted this year, that allows teams to soften 60 kicking balls at the beginning of the season, making it easier for their kickers to achieve greater distances.
But Smith, who believes he could have been effective from long range if coaches of his day elected to try such kicks, is not completely wrong about the soccer thing. That’s evidenced by the fact that two of the league’s best kickers, Brandon Aubrey of the Dallas Cowboys and Cameron Dicker of the San Diego Chargers, have backgrounds in the beautiful game.
Aubrey played soccer at Notre Dame and was taken in the 2017 Major League Soccer draft. He put that sport aside after two years and became a software engineer, according to The Athletic, then took up football. After training for several years with a respected swing coach named Brian Egan he landed in the USFL in 2023, where the Cowboys unearthed him. In two seasons with the Cowboys he has nailed five field goals of 60 yards or longer, more than anyone ever has.
Dicker, whose 93.5 percent field goal accuracy through last weekend is the best in NFL history, grew up playing soccer in Shanghai before his family moved to Texas.
Cue Smith, who at age 75 now lives with his wife Vivienne on Hilton Head Island, having sold his Massachusetts-based business, John Smith Sports Center, five years ago.
“When you grow up kicking a soccer ball from five years old on,” he said, “and you’ve got a touch with your feet and you’re used to kicking that ball all day, you’ve got a major advantage over somebody who’s just kicked a football, because they just don’t have that touch. The soccer players will always win out against the other guys – no doubt in my mind. There’s no comparison.”
Actually there is. Smith made 67 percent of his field goals during his career. That’s an accuracy rate that would be found wanting in today’s NFL, where 80 percent is the going rate. (Aubrey, for example, has connected on 90.4 percent of his kicks, second all-time to Dicker, while Butker has made 88.3 percent, which is fifth. In all, seven current kickers are among the top 10 in league history.)
It has reached the point, Aubrey told The Athletic, where “70 (yards) will be the new 60.”
Suffice it to say, at least, that soccer dexterity can be one of many factors involved with kicking prowess. Smith showed it while twice leading the NFL in scoring during his 10 seasons. He was also involved in one of the more bizarre special-teams moments in league history.
That occurred on Dec. 12, 1982, when his 33-yard field goal in snowy, icy conditions represented the only points in a 3-0 Pats victory over Miami. It came with 4:45 left in the game, after an inmate on work-release from a nearby prison, Mark Henderson, drove his tractor onto the field and appeared to clear a spot for Smith’s attempt.
It came to be known as The Snowplow Game, but there are several misconceptions, the first being that there was a snowplow involved. In actuality, Henderson’s tractor, which is now displayed in the Patriots’ Hall of Fame, had attached to it a brush designed to clear snow off the artificial turf in Schaefer Stadium. And throughout the game that’s what he did, at five-yard increments.
But according to Smith, Henderson didn’t really help his kick at all. He said that a rainstorm had preceded the snowfall, leaving an icy coating beneath the layer of white stuff. So while he and his teammates endeavored to clear the snow, the bigger issue was gouging out an area in the ice where holder Matt Cavanaugh could spot the ball, and ensure that Smith had good footing.
Henderson, summoned from the sideline to the field by New England coach Ron Meyer, didn’t help matters. All he succeeded in doing, Smith said, was sweeping snow on him and Cavanaugh.
“I sort of didn’t give it very nice words,” Smith said, “and said, ‘Get out of here.’”
The ice remained, but Cavanaugh managed an adequate hold and Smith had enough footing to nail the kick. He would later tell reporters that Henderson had no impact, though Don Shula, the Dolphins’ legendary coach was livid – and remained so, years later.
When contacted by the Boston Herald for a seemingly light-hearted story about the incident in 2007, Shula said, “I don’t see any humor at all in it. What was so humorous about it?”
The day of the game, Henderson was unconcerned about any accusations that he might have been involved in anything untoward.
“What are they gonna do,” he told reporters, “throw me in jail?”
Smith said he and Henderson appeared at a card show in Boston last year.
“I thought it was the funniest thing ever,” Smith said. “I thought, ‘Son of a gun – I’m the one who made the kick. I’m the one in the news, and the god darn tractor driver gets all the doggone press.’ I thought it was ridiculous. I mean, the guy should have been in prison with his little shirt on.”
Smith was born in Leafield, England and grew up in Milton-under-Wychwood, a town of less than 2,000 located some two and a half hours northwest of London. As with most Europeans, he was playing soccer almost as soon as he could walk, and by his early teen years was being fast-tracked toward a local professional team, as was (and is) common.
His mom wanted him to get an education instead, which is how he wound up training to be a teacher at St. Alfred’s University, beginning in 1968. Four years later he came stateside to work a soccer camp in Pittsfield, Mass. when someone produced a football. He had never kicked one before, but he tried it that day, and in time that led to a tryout with the Patriots, and to his career.
Certainly there were bumps along the way. Early in his first training camp Pats coach Chuck Fairbanks called Smith from a far-off practice field to attempt a field goal in a scrimmage against Washington. He made the kick, but there was a small problem – Smith had neglected to wear his helmet.
“I wasn’t used to the equipment,” he said, adding that his friend Steve Grogan, the long-retired Pats quarterback, “never lets me forget that one.”
The first NFL game Smith ever saw was one in which he played – specifically, the 1973 Hall of Fame Game against San Francisco in Canton, Ohio. He remembers one of the 49ers spewing trash talk at him before the opening kickoff, and broadcaster Howard Cosell wondering on the air if the Pats would ship him back to England after his kickoff barely reached the 20.
A few years later – on Dec. 8, 1980, specifically – Cosell was calling a Monday night game, again between New England and Miami, this one in Miami. The game itself was unremarkable, the Dolphins winning in overtime, but notable because Cosell announced late in the proceedings that John Lennon had been shot and killed.
Given Smith’s background, the news hit him especially hard when it was relayed to him after the game.
“I was a big Beatles guy, and it was my area in England, and my wife was from Manchester, and the Beatles were from just up the road, in Liverpool,” he said. “It was our area, so that was astonishing when that happened. That was an English lad who had done really well – super band, best band in the world.”
As a Patriots rookie, he had entertained the veterans by singing Beatles songs after training-camp dinners, part of a quintessential hazing ritual. And he did it in such a way (and in an accent the vets found entertaining) that they demanded he do so, night after night. Finally he tired of it, and belted out “God Save the Queen” instead.
“And they all started throwing bread at me, and all sorts of stuff,” he recalled with a laugh. “So they never asked me again.”
His career would then continue to unfold before him. He kicked for good teams and bad. He won those scoring titles. He made a Pro Bowl. And when all was said and done, he was left clinging to his roots, to the belief that one discipline fed into another. All these years later, there is some evidence he was right, if only to an extent.