CINCINNATI (WKRC) – After the worst statistical season of his four-year NFL career last season, Bengals kicker Evan McPherson decided to go back to what he used to do technically in college and through his first NFL season, and the decision has been so far, so good in the first three days of training camp.
McPherson kicked field goals on two of the first three days of camp, and made all 12 of his attempts, including a 52-yarder on Friday with a key competition point on the line.
That’s a good step forward after he made a career-worst 72.7 percent of his field goal attempts last season (16 of his 22 attempts); he made at least 82.8 percent of his attempts in each of this first three seasons. It should be noted that one of his misses came when holder Ryan Rehkow struggled with a snap that threw the timing off and that four of McPherson’s misses came from beyond 50 yards. He made 21 of his 28 attempts from beyond 50 yards in his first three seasons, including 14 of 16 in his first two seasons.
So what has gone wrong?
“It’s funny, after my rookie year I went on a deep dive to figure out how I could become more consistent,” said McPherson. “It sent me the other way. This past offseason I went back to when I grew up, from when I started kicking into college, pre-draft and everything I’ve done leading up to my rookie season and I kind of resorted back to that. I feel more comfortable in my technique now and I can just focus on the kick and not really focus on my steps and all these other things I was putting on myself.”
But why make the change?
“I feel like as a professional athlete you are always looking for perfection, but you have to realize you’re never going to get it,” said McPherson. “I was looking for a straighter ball flight and a more consistent ball flight rather than hitting a draw. I found it in a certain technique, but I found I wasn’t as consistent. It worked my third year and worked really well. I tried to continue into my fourth year and tweaked it a little bit and it didn’t really work out. I’m at the point now where I’m going to back to where I learned how to kick. All I need to focus on is my target line, the wind and my body just kind of does the rest.”
What McPherson has done is change the angle of his shoulders and hips in relation to the holder, and try to hit a draw (a right to left ball flight) on every kick.
“Growing up, my body and my shoulders, hips everything is angled more towards (the holder),” said McPherson. “I’m a little a more square to him. My third season when I switched my shoulders and my hips were aligned more toward my target, so I opened up a little bit. What I realized was I had done one thing for so long that if I’m squared toward the target it takes away from my power. Now I feel like my body has rotated so much that it’s more natural for me coming in more from a side angle to just plant and rotate through it. I switched to a draw, and kind of what I’ve done since I stared kicking. I’m hitting more of a draw and I am trusting it.”
It also hasn’t helped that McPherson has been through multiple snapper/holder combinations in his first four seasons. In his first 22 career games (regular season and postseason) it was Clark Harris as the long snapper and Kevin Huber as the holder, and they had been performing the operation together for over a decade. Then it became Cal Adomitis and Huber for eight games, followed by Adomitis and Drue Chrisman for 10 games (regular season and postseason), then Adomitis and Brad Robbins for the 2023 season and Adomitis and Ryan Rehkow all of last season.
“Evan was very fortunate that when he got here that he was a part of an operation that been in place for a long time with Kevin and Clark, you know, and there’s a great deal of trust that those guys have had,” said special teams coach Darrin Simmons. “I just want to get something that’s solidified and, stationary, you know, and so they can all grow together and get locked in together, There’s gonna be competition for the snapper spot (between Adomitis and undrafted free agent signee Williams Wagner). Ryan will be the holder, but, you know, there, there’ll be multiple guys we have, you know, trying to figure out who’s gonna be the snap.”
It’s all worked well no matter who has snapped at this point in camp.
McPherson, who became known as “Money Mac” for all of the clutch kicks he made as a rookie, made one in the clutch for teammates at the end of Friday’s practice, despite some cheering against him.
“There is an offense/defense point system,” said McPherson. “(Head coach) Zac (Taylor) made the specialists choose one side or the other and Will chose offense and Cal and Ryan chose defense. We have friendly competitions throughout training camp and then whoever has the most points at the end of training camp gets something and the other people have to stay for meetings or do some type of punishment. That was for an offensive point. It’s more fun than anything. I expressed to Darrin that we have a group of NFL guys that get together every year in Gatlingburg and I can’t seem to figure out why I kick so well there and I can’t translate it to when I’m kicking it by myself. I think it’s just the adrenaline that you get being around the guys and competing and having fun. You feel like you might get nervous when everybody huddles around and starts hooting and hollering, but I feel like it gives you an extra boost of adrenaline. I felt pretty calm in the moment; pretty excited. Just did what I would do when nobody is around.”