CINCINNATI – The conversation began with Cincinnati Bengals kicker Evan McPherson explaining why half of his teammates were trying to distract him from making a 52-yard field goal to end Friday’s training camp practice.
It ended 16 minutes later after an informative and introspective discussion of what happened to the magic from McPherson’s rookie year, how the struggles have affected him mentally and how he plans to return to his old self.
Not everyone can relate to the technique, timing and rhythm of kicking a football, but there is nothing unique when it comes to understanding the cautionary tale of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
After a wildly successful rookie season that saw him make 12 of 14 field goals from 50+ yards and 42 of 47 overall, including walk-off winners in the AFC Championship Game and Divisional Round, McPherson fell into the trap of chasing the unattainable – perfection.
“After my rookie year I went on a deep dive to figure out how I could become more consistent, and it sent me the other way,” he said. “So this past offseason, I went back to what I grew up doing from the time I started kicking into college, pre-draft and everything I'd done leading up to my rookie season.”
If you watch some of his longer field goals from that 2021 season, he always started the ball to the right, knowing the torque of his hips was going to bring it back to the center, like a golfer playing a draw.
But McPherson always had admired kickers who drilled straight, end-over-end kicks through the uprights. He believed that would make him more consistent by eliminating the variables that come by starting the ball wide and curling it through.
“I was looking for the straighter ball flight, more consistent ball flight rather than hitting a draw, and I found it in a certain technique,” he said.
He dipped slightly from from making 89.4 percent of his kicks as rookie to 85.3 percent (29 of 34) in 2022, although he was perfect from long distance, going 5 of 5 on 50+ attempts.
In 2023, he was 26 of 31 (83.9 percent) overall, but all five misses came from 50+, where he was 7 of 12.
Last year he plummeted to 72.7 percent (16 of 22), including 3 of 7 (42.9 percent) from 50+.
So he knew it was time for a change.
“I continued to try to do it into my fourth (season), and I tweaked it a little bit, and it didn't really work out,” McPherson said. “I'm at the point now where I'm going back to how I grew up learning how to kick. So all I need to focus on is my target line and the wind, and my body does the rest.”
McPherson suffered a season-ending groin injury in Week 13, but it wasn’t related to his new technique.
Special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons has told McPherson – and the media – that his kicker needs to improve his strength and conditioning.
It’s not that McPherson was out of shape. He just wasn’t doing everything he needed to be at his peak.
And that’s something McPherson said is making a priority, not just in terms of offseason workouts, but his daily warmup routine.
“Obviously my health has been a big emphasis for me in learning how to take care of my body,” he said. “I’m just making sure I'm warming up properly, and long enough. I'm kind of prolonging my warmup routine now, adding some stuff, making sure I'm properly warmed up before I go out and kick and I'm not just kind of running out there after a 10-minute warmup and some of the small muscles are still cold.
“I feel like that's what I did last year, and that's what ended up tearing,” he added.
Additionally, McPherson has been adding more stretching and extra time in the cold tub after practice in addition to even more stretching in the evening at home.
“It’s all the extra body work that I hadn't done in the past just because I had a younger body,” he said. “I'm doing now to try to stay ahead of the injuries.”
None of it could have prevented the setback he suffered in OTAs, which Simmons referred to as an ankle tweak during a rainy practice.
“It wasn’t my most athletic moment,” McPherson said with a chuckle. “It was on a kickoff, and I skipped through, and my back studs didn’t catch and my back foot just kind of slipped out from under me and twisted my ankle. It did not feel good.”
McPherson is 12 for 12 in field goal attempts through the first three practices of training camp.
The amount of draw on his kicks was extreme Friday, when there was a strong breeze from right to left, which McPherson was happy to experiment with.
“I think rainy and windy days are fun,” he said. “I really didn't think I could miss right today with the wind, so I was just confidently hitting it right center, right upper and just letting the ball work in.”
Of course no amount of towel-twirling and hooting and hollering can replicate the pressure of making a game-winning kick.
McPherson always has had an ability to slow his heart rate, manage his breathing, calm his nerves and focus on the mechanics of the kick.
But when he was experimenting with tweaks to his technique, it allowed a little doubt to creep into the equation.
He was 4 of 7 on fourth quarter attempts last year. That 57.1 percent success rate in crunch time ranked 33rd of 36 kickers with at least four attempts.
Now that he’s returned to his old way of kicking, there is renewed comfort both physically and mentally in addition to a confidence spike that his new warmup routine is going to prevent the nagging injuries that have plagued him at times the last few years.
“I feel pretty comfortable right now in what I'm doing,” McPherson said. “I've just got to keep it going and carry it over into the game.”
