What Browns kicker Dustin Hopkins said after missing his lone kick in loss to Bengals following week off

CINCINNATI, Ohio — A week off for Dustin Hopkins did not, in fact, remedy the Browns' kicking woes.

Against the Cincinnati Bengals in Cleveland’s 24-6 loss, Hopkins missed his only kick of the afternoon — an extra-point attempt at the 5:50 mark in the third quarter — hanging the ball wide right. It’s a miss that comes after getting an unconventional game off last week to try and remedy his consistency issues.

Hopkins is now just 16 of 19 on PATs this year. His other misses came in Week 4 against the Raiders and in Week 7 in the Browns' first loss to the Bengals.

But field goals are the biggest concern. This season, he has made just 16-of-25 attempts, including 9-of-17 in his eight games prior to this one. After two missed kicks against Pittsburgh two weeks ago, he had made just two of his previous seven kicks.

As Hopkins has continued to try and fight through his struggles amidst a 3-12 record for the Browns, he called the fact that there’s still two games left to try and work through his issues a “Catch-22.″

“I mean, honestly it’s good because obviously I need the game reps,” he said. “I need to get better, so I need to make the most of those game reps. But at the same time, I’m like, there definitely will be a part of me that won’t be upset that the season’s over, for us as a team and as an individual.”

The Browns made the unconventional decision in Week 15 to sit Hopkins down for a week as the Browns hosted the Kansas City Chiefs, and while no player ever wants to be told sit down, Hopkins didn’t put up much of a fight.

Cleveland let Riley Patterson handle the kicking duties in that 21-7 loss to Kansas City. He made his lone extra-point and the Falcons signed him off the Browns practice squad this week.

This week, Hopkins talked at length about being OK with that decision because of his trust in Kevin Stefanski and the other Browns' decisionmakers.

He talked about using his week off to work more on his swing thought and mechanics, and special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone said that the kicker had a good week of practice, made all his kicks, and that what he was dealing with wasn’t a mental hurdle.

“He’s always said that he hasn’t had any like mental lapses or anything like that,” Ventrone said on Thursday. “He feels confident and I think that you saw it last week in the practice reps that he does feel confident when he’s out there, and I think that there’s just a few things.

“Look, things happen throughout the season, throughout your career that you may not be in as good of a rhythm as you have been at other times, and you just try to figure it out and get it fixed.”

So after the week off and high expectations, was Hopkins frustrated on Sunday to go out and miss his only attempt in Cincy?

“It’s been a battle this year, so it’s absolutely frustrating,” Hopkins said. “It feels like a lot of work down the drain for the opportunity you get is what it feels like. So I got to dig deep into the tool bag again and get myself to a place where I believe in it again, believe in the swing, and then go out there and try again next week.”

What happened on the kick itself?

“Warming up the swing, that I felt Thursday was harder to find. Friday, harder to find pregame, and then thought I fixed it, thought I found a better aiming point on the ball,” Hopkins said. “I took that swing thought into the rep in the game and toed it. Was a little deep on the plant and obviously wasn’t good enough.”

It’s been a surprising season for Hopkins, considering last year he was one of the best kickers in the league making all eight of his attempts from 50-plus yards.

The 34 year old kicked well enough in his first year with the Browns in 2023 to earn a 3-year contract extension in the offseason that, at the time, made him the fifth-highest paid kicker in the league — he’s now eighth. Hopkins had a year left on his deal at the time.

Stefanski was asked after the game what happened on the missed kick and whether the team would consider another change at the position.

“We’ve just got to continue to work through it, and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.

To make matters worse on Sunday, Hopkins was shown up by the guy he replaced.

Cade York, the Browns' former fourth-round draft pick in 2022, is now with the Bengals, kicking while Evan McPherson remains out with an injury. While York hung one 47-yard FG attempt wide left in the first quarter, at the end of the first half he nailed a 59-yard field goal, tying a franchise record for longest make, giving the Bengals a 17-0 lead at the break.

Amidst it all, Cleveland and Hopkins will go back to the drawing board.