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Quest to kick a 40-yard FG for $20,000 (1 Viewer)

The Noid

Avoid me!
The Philadelphia Eagles are holding a contest where, from August 18th to October 20th, they are randomly selecting one fan each day (64 total) to compete for a chance to kick a FG worth $20,000 at haltime of the Eagles-Titans game. The competition will take place at the Eagles practice facility on November 1st.

I entered a few days ago and found out I was selected as that day's winner.

Here's what I figure:

  • I've got 2 months to prepare, which gives me a good advantage over the last 10 or so people selected in mid-October
  • There will be another 10 that are no-shows or have eligibility issues
  • Probably another 15 of the winners will be old and/or out-of-shape that will only skip groundballs toward the goal posts
  • At least 5 more will be women with no athletic ability
  • That leaves about 24 men/women as legit competition
The sponsor had a similar event for media members, with a charity prize, to promote the start of the contest a couple weeks ago, and here's how it worked:

  • Everyone got 2 kicks from 20 yards, if you made one, you moved on
  • Next kick was from 25, and so on
  • If no one made it with their two kicks, remaining kickers got an equal amount of tries until someone made it and was the "winner"
  • All kicks were done using kicking stands
Here's what I have (or don't have?) going for me:

  • Just turned 40, but in good, ahtletic shape
  • Eat healthy and workout regularly (I am a FBG after all)
  • 30-45 minutes of cardio 7 days/week
  • 30 minutes of weights 6 days/week
  • My son is the kicker for his JV team and I took him to Ray Guy's kicking camp last year, took home a DVD and other materials about drills and other techniques that he works on; they only do kick-offs (no FGs at this level) but he's been trying to get a jump on good FG and Punting skills for when he's older
  • We went out yesterday and, with no prep, I hit about 50% from 20, made a couple from 25 and was very close to making a 30; about 25 kicks total and only a slight bit of soreness in my kicking leg today
  • The biggest stage I previously performed on was 16 years ago at an NBA game in front of 20,000 people when I was selected to take an almost half-court shot, and air-balled it
So, if I start dedicating 20 minutes a day for the next 60 days to prepare, I think I up my odds to about 1:10 of winning this thing. At the very least, I think I'll at least get some cool swag just for showing up.

Any advice? Do I pony up a few hundred bucks on a kicking net and kicking cleats?

 
I would make sure you know the rules of this contest, most importantly find out if they will be using a kicking stand and whether you will be kicking from the middle of the field or one of the hash marks.

 
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We did a training session at the Meadowlands when I lived in NYC ~15 years ago. I kicked a 30 yard FG pretty easily with no kicking training other than a background in rugby. I think you should be able to do it with as much lead time as you have.

 
Download the full "Fappening" library of leaked images to improve wrist strength in event it becomes a Punt/Pass/Kick.

 
This is very cool!

When practicing, make sure you try and find a surface that is very similar to the Eagles practice facility where you will be kicking (ask if you need to).

If you practice entirely on grass and have to step on to field turf (or vice versa) you might be uncomfortable if they don't give any practice time before you kick (which I am guessing they won't).

 
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Lot harder than it sounds.

I've kicked 30-35 yarders with a soccer background but that was years ago.

Pray for wind at your back.

 
  • We went out yesterday and, with no prep, I hit about 50% from 20, made a couple from 25 and was very close to making a 30; about 25 kicks total and only a slight bit of soreness in my kicking leg today
Lots of work to be done here. First off go buy the kicking stand. Second is to find a coach (yes, I'm serious). The advice to hit the gym is :lmao: . Kicking a field goal is like golf - get the swing and you can hit the ball surprisingly far. Find a soccer coach or college player or something along those lines who can help you with technique. Then, like everything else, it's repetition.

(And why can't this crap happen to me? In my heyday I was good from 50+ :rant: )

 
NewlyRetired said:
Maybe practice from 30 -- if you can hit those pretty regularly the 20 and 25 will seem easy on game day.
I think you misread his post. He has to kick from 40 for the 20k. the 20/25 was an example of a different event, not the one he will be kicking at if I understood him.
My understanding is that there's a preliminary event at the practice facility to decide which one fan gets to try a 40 yarder at halftime of the actual game. His first goal is to be the best at the preliminary event, which involves 20 yarders and up. Then his next goal is to hit the 40 yarder at the game.

 
To clarrify, I'm in the field of 64 on November 1st. Whomever is delcared the "winner" of that event, get's one shot at a 40-yarder at halftime for $20k, on November 23rd.

I have the kicking stand.

I know the field is grass (unless because of weather they have it indoors, which is turf.)

The Eagles rep said all contestants will get full details on October 20th.

 
Is it too late to have half of you kicking foot chopped off? Not sure how long it would take it to heal.

 
  • We went out yesterday and, with no prep, I hit about 50% from 20, made a couple from 25 and was very close to making a 30; about 25 kicks total and only a slight bit of soreness in my kicking leg today
Lots of work to be done here. First off go buy the kicking stand. Second is to find a coach (yes, I'm serious). The advice to hit the gym is :lmao: . Kicking a field goal is like golf - get the swing and you can hit the ball surprisingly far. Find a soccer coach or college player or something along those lines who can help you with technique. Then, like everything else, it's repetition.

(And why can't this crap happen to me? In my heyday I was good from 50+ :rant: )
Have you seen the size of the quads on those kickers?

 
  • We went out yesterday and, with no prep, I hit about 50% from 20, made a couple from 25 and was very close to making a 30; about 25 kicks total and only a slight bit of soreness in my kicking leg today
Lots of work to be done here. First off go buy the kicking stand. Second is to find a coach (yes, I'm serious). The advice to hit the gym is :lmao: . Kicking a field goal is like golf - get the swing and you can hit the ball surprisingly far. Find a soccer coach or college player or something along those lines who can help you with technique. Then, like everything else, it's repetition.

(And why can't this crap happen to me? In my heyday I was good from 50+ :rant: )
Have you seen the size of the quads on those kickers?
Yeah, and they can hit from 60+. That said I used to have Elam sized quads :-)flex:).

Seriously, though, for the shorter distances technique will get you a lot farther than strength - the proportional gains in distance and accuracy are much greater in getting a good leg swing going. If OP practices religiously he'll see some amount of strength increase from the practice anyway.

 
First priority is obviously generating the power to get the distance. Then you need to tune accuracy. The distance is all about technique to generate ball speed, like driving a golf ball. I'd buy or borrow a golf or baseball type radar speed detector to add to your practice net in the backyard to tune your kick for maximum speed before wasting time on a football field. Then study instructional info on proper technique. Once you are getting the required distance then go to the goal posts to work on accuracy. It's all about locking the ankle, loading the hip and knee joints and timing their release to maximize the whip snap. Look at the goals posts before approaching the ball. After that 100% focus on the spot of the ball you are aiming to strike.

Normally a field goal kick would need to be kicked high to get over the defensive line but in this case it's all about trjactory to maximize distance/accuracy so mechanics should be similar to kicking a driven soccer ball. I have a great video for that I can share if I can find it.

 
Work on your dance. No way do you want to win and then look like an idiot. Skip the discount double-check or tebow move, way overused and so last year. Try something more original. Spend a lot of time watching MTV. Look for something hip you can latch onto and make it your own.

 
Disappointed when I opened this thread and it wasn't about the drummer of the Roots kicking field goals. :kicksrock:

 
Fill your kicking shoe with wheat pennies. If you miss, you still have the wheat pennies.

 
In your OP, you gave some %'s you made from various distances. Were these distances from that yard line, or were those the total length of the kick? A 40yd fg would be kicked from the 30yd line.

You say you're in good, athletic shape with a lot of exposure to kicking info because of your son, but only made 50% from the ten yard line? And your leg was sore afterwards? Was the wind blowing 50mph?

 
I work for the sponsoring bank and the videos of people trying the kick so far have been hilarious. Kudos for trying to plan and practice because it seems like others are treating this like the half court basketball shot and hoping for a miracle.

 
cut off your right arm fingers and part of your right foot, then go all tom dempsey on their ### with a club foot.

or......give russell erxleben 10k to be you for a day.

 

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