If you have trust issues in your relationship, talk to a Minnesota Vikings fan about kickers. Vikings fans have been scarred over the years by missed kicks at the worst possible time, but Will Reichard is doing his best to cure that PTSD.
Reichard has gone a perfect 7-for-7 on his field goals this season and has made his last 26 field goal attempts dating back to a 53-yard miss in a loss to the Los Angeles Chargers during Week 8 of the 2025 season. At this point, it feels like only camera wires or injuries can stop Reichard from putting points on the board when called upon, and while that could change at any moment, Reichard is beginning to put the Vikings’ brutal history in the rearview mirror.
Will Reichard is overcoming the Minnesota Vikings’ history at kicker
The Vikings’ history with kickers is scary enough to produce a Halloween special. But it wasn’t always the case.
Fred Cox was one of Minnesota’s first kickers and spent 15 seasons with the Vikings, remaining the team’s all-time leading scorer with 1,365 points. Minnesota also had Hall of Famer Jan Stenerud during the tail end of his career, but things changed when Gary Anderson missed a wide-left field goal in the 1999 NFC Championship Game.
After converting all 35 of his field goals and all 59 extra points during the 1998 regular season, the miss was shocking and allowed the Atlanta Falcons to come back, win the game, and send a team that featured Randy Moss, Cris Carter, and John Randle to watch the Super Bowl on their couch. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Vikings’ kicker problems.
Ryan Longwell provided some stability at the position, spending six seasons in Minnesota from 2006 through the 2011 season. But while Blair Walsh was an All-Pro in his first season replacing Longwell, he’s known in Vikings history for a 27-yard missed field goal that went wide left and nearly landed in the Mississippi River during a 2015 Wild Card loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
Things didn’t calm down from there, as Mike Zimmer had an infamously short fuse with Kai Forbath, Daniel Carlson, Dan Bailey, and Greg Joseph. Even trading for solutions blew up in the Vikings' faces, as Kaare Vedvik didn’t even make the team after being acquired in a 2018 trade with the Baltimore Ravens.
Heck, even though Brett Favre gets blamed for throwing an interception at the end of regulation in the 2010 NFC Championship Game, there’s no guarantee Longwell would have made the 56-yard field goal to send Minnesota to the Super Bowl, given the curse that has hovered around the Vikings.
This made fans extremely leery when they selected Reichard in the 2024 draft. But over time, he has shown why his Alabama teammate Dallas Turner called him a “cold-blooded sniper” when he came to Minnesota.
Reichard is giving Vikings fans a reason not to panic over kickers
Reichard’s stats are enough to put fans at ease: 64-of-72 (88.9%) on field goals and all 75 extra points since coming to Minnesota. His misses have also come for good reason, with a quad injury holding him to 24-of-30 (80.0%) on field goals during his rookie season and a camera wire conspiracy during a Week 4 game against the Cleveland Browns in London last year accounting for one of his two misses last season.
Despite this, fans have still worried about Reichard. The 2024 injury was one concern, and another popped up when he missed a handful of field goals during the 2025 training camp. Even the loss of Ryan Wright, who served as the holder on field goals in each of Reichard’s first two seasons before leaving for the New Orleans Saints in free agency last spring, hasn’t slowed down Reichard, and he’s become a fan favorite who even starred in the team’s schedule release video last spring.
Of course, Reichard could go from a hero to a villain with one ill-timed kick. In fact, you may be reading this article screaming something like “YOU’RE GOING TO JINX HIM!!!” and that’s totally understandable.
But for now, Reichard doesn’t create anxiety when he lines up for a kick, and it’s something that Vikings fans have been dreaming of for decades.
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