Fromal's Kicking Notebook: Will Reichard is the Vikings offense and Chris Boswell can't justify his contract

When I broke down the numbers that would define NFL kicking in 2026, I cited three that showcased how much the job as a whole was changing: an average attempt distance of 40.47 yards in 2025, the 12 makes we saw from 60-plus yards last season and the elusive 70-yard connection that would break Cam Little's record by two yards.

Through four weeks, the 2026 season is validating — or coming close to validating — each of the three. No one has made from 70 yet, but Little came tantalizingly close in Week 3 when he had the leg necessary for the record but left it inches outside the right upright. Tyler Loop and Chad Ryland joined Brandon Aubrey in Club 60 during the most recent slate of games, which puts the league as a whole on pace to exceed last year's dozen such makes. And 259 attempts into the campaign, the average three-point try is coming from a staggering, record-setting 41.52 yards.

Kickers just keep getting better. Progress stops for no one. Though I'm also diving deep on a veteran trending in the wrong direction, the excellence of this crop of NFL specialists is a big focus of this week's notebook — as I look at a near-record streak, remarkable clutch performances and so much more.

The NFL kicking numbers that mattered in Week 4

Week 4 featured 68 field-goal attempts, and the league's kickers combined to make 60 of them. That 88.2 percent accuracy is impressive enough, but it's all the more noteworthy when the average attempt came from 41.87 yards and two of the misses were blocked. Pair that with a 69-of-73 showing on extra points, and the NFL recorded 9.0 KVA.

My proprietary kick value added (KVA) metric, which looks not just at a kicker's makes and misses but also at the distances from which they kicked and the overall league's level of success from each area during the season in question, helps us make sense of all the 2026 numbers. We're still early enough in the season that the league average against which all kicks are measured will change materially in the coming weeks, but that won't stop us from parsing through the numbers for insights.

First, the top performers from Week 4:

On the other side of the spectrum, the next five kickers struggled to varying degrees in Week 4:

We'll have more on Brandon Aubrey's struggles toward the end of the notebook, especially because his name is also going to appear in the table showing the 10 worst performers of the 2026 season to date. But first, we get to be more positive and look at the best of the best:

Now, for those bottom-dwellers:

Biggest NFL kicker takeaways from Week 4

As always, the raw numbers pale in importance to the kicks themselves. So let's dive into the storylines and observations.

Chris Boswell's contract is already aging terribly for the Steelers

Important caveat to any negatively slanted discussion of Chris Boswell, Pittsburgh Steelers living legend: He's had an utterly phenomenal career and, at 35 years old, has already done an admirable job of staving off Father Time so long. But as you may have guessed from the necessity of including such a statement, Father Time, as always, is starting to win.

Week 4 featured another missed kick as Boswell failed to navigate a crosswind that amplified his right-to-left draw on a 48-yarder from the right hash — the same tough scenario that bit Harrison Mevis from the exact same distance three days later, though the Rams kicker mentally succumbed to the elevated difficulty and missed badly. That's now three misses for Boswell as he continues his march in the wrong direction: this 48-yarder, a 56-yarder against the Falcons that faded just outside right and a 57-yarder against the Patriots that easily had the leg but missed just outside left.

Boswell hit his career high in field-goal KVA on Nov. 2, 2025 (75.1), but he's fallen to 69.1 after his Thursday Night Football struggles. Only Ryland, Wil Lutz and Andy Borregales have provided less value on their field-goal attempts during that stretch, which has also seen Boswell fail to adapt to the dynamic kickoff rules. He's one of 12 players with 10-plus kickoffs and zero touchbacks to the 20 this season (kicks that hit the landing zone before entering the end zone), and he had two to-the-20 touchbacks in 89 attempts during the 2025 campaign.

Though Boswell finished last season 12th in KVA and sat at No. 8 in my preseason rankings of the position, the bottom can fall out fast. Three of Boswell's misses last season came in November or later as his accuracy declined, though he still finished at a much higher level in 2025 ...

... than we're seeing thus far in 2026:

This year, he's consistently sitting below the league-wide accuracy standard (in purple), and the data points to a significant accuracy drop at 48 yards, which is problematically short for a kicker in 2026. And while Boswell has the track record and leg talent necessary to right this ship before it gets out of hand, this is most assuredly not what the Steelers wanted to be worrying about after handing the veteran a four-year, $28 million contract that left him tied with Brandon Aubrey for the position's highest-ever average annual value.

Per Spotrac, the Steelers are on the books for the sixth-biggest cap hit at kicker this season. Based on the combination of field-goal kicking (-3.66 FG KVA), point-after tries (0.28 XP KVA) and kickoffs (-0.68 kickoff points gained), only five kickers have been less valuable than Boswell this year: Cameron Dicker, Drew Stevens, Nick Folk, Mevis and Riley Patterson.

The Steelers can — and should — have a long leash with their long-tenured specialist, but that's far from an ideal combination. He currently looks like the league's biggest financial liability at the position.

Will Reichard is on quite the hot streak for the Minnesota Vikings

On the opposite end of the kicker spectrum, Will Reichard has excelled in all three phases. He's added significant value in the kickoff game with his ability to force returners to begin in the shadow of their own end zone. He's drilled all six of his extra points, which is both what's expected of him and a bad look for the Minnesota offense. And most impressively, he's now drilled 30 consecutive field-goal attempts (not even including five preseason makes).

The last five makes came in a showcase performance that featured a goose egg from all other members of the Vikings organization. The last miss? You have to go all the way back to Oct. 23, 2025, when he left a 53-yarder short and right against the Chargers.

He's still chasing Gary Anderson for the longest streak in franchise history (39 in a row), but Vikings fans can rest assured that irrespective of whether he sets a new organizational standard, the way his run ends will be more positive. Anderson's streak-ender was the infamous wide-left foible that allowed the Atlanta Falcons to come back in the 1998 NFC Championship Game (played in January 1999). Reichard, hot as he is right now, is highly unlikely to maintain his perfection into the postseason, and even something as tragic as a missed game-winner would pale in comparison to the enduring horror Vikings fans experience when remembering the ignominious Anderson moment.

Though he has a long way to go in his quest to chase down Fred Cox for the top KVA in Vikings history, as you can see above in the bar-chart race throughout franchise history, Reichard is already fifth in the Minnesota annals. Among all NFL kickers, he's already up to No. 93 in career KVA after starting the 2026 festivities 12 spots shy of the top 100. Oh, and he's only four games into his third professional go-round.

Breaking news: Reichard is kinda good at this whole kicking thing. Good enough that he's the league leader in the aforementioned three-pronged kicking metric that accounts for field-goal kicking (FG KVA), point-after tries (XP KVA) and kickoffs (KPG), which I'm calling kicker points over average (KPOA).

Now, the problem for Minnesota? The team has scored a grand total of 86 points through four weeks, and Reichard has accounted for 42 of them. That also paces the league, but this time, that's not great news for the Vikings:

If that holds, Reichard will lay claim to the record. Heading into the 2026 season, Rob Bironas was the proud(?) owner of the mark after he scored 133 of the 2007 Tennessee Titans' 301 points (44.2 percent). That dethroned Jason Hanson, who accounted for 130 of the 1993 Detroit Lions' 298 points (43.6 percent).

The best-of-both-worlds scenario for the Vikings, though, involves a healthy Justin Jefferson getting the offense back on track even as Reichard continues his quest for a historically accurate season.

Unveiling some new clutch kicking looks

Let's go behind the curtains.

Every time an NFL kicker attempts a field goal or extra point, I log the exact situation (pre-kick team score, opponent score, quarter, time remaining in the quarter, hash location) and watch the tape to pinpoint, as best as possible, where the ball crossed the threshold. That allows for the KVA and accuracy metrics I've cited throughout these notebooks and, as the sample builds, lets us look at some situational numbers. Right now, I'm splitting those up into three nesting buckets, and the throughline between them is that kickers have been pretty damn good across the board.

Pressure kicks are defined as attempts that change the score state in the fourth quarter or overtime. They can tie the game, take the lead, move the margin between one and two scores or force the trailing team to need a touchdown rather than a field goal.

Andre Szmyt is the clubhouse leader on pressure kicks (1.67 KVA), drilling a 56-yard game-winner against the Steelers on Thursday Night Football in Week 4 after hitting a 45-yarder down two with 7:30 remaining against the Panthers on Sept. 7 and converting an extra point to go up four with 3:51 left against the Buccaneers on Sept. 20. The league as a whole has gone a remarkable 37-of-42 on pressure field-goal attempts and 22-of-22 on pressure extra points, which yields 5.91 KVA.

The next step up is called clutch kicks, defined as attempts that create a tie or take the lead with under five minutes to go in the fourth quarter or at any point in overtime. The NFL as a whole has earned 3.49 KVA in clutch situations. Kickers have made 14 of 15 clutch field-goal attempts and the lone clutch extra point, with the sole miss coming courtesy of Daniel Carlson when his 62-yarder missed wide right and short and left the Saints to continue their Sept. 13 matchup with the Lions in overtime. Spencer Shrader, thanks to his 38-yarder in overtime against the Chiefs on Sept. 20 and his go-ahead 53-yard bomb with 16 seconds left against the Texans a week later, is the NFL leader at 1.23 KVA.

Superclutch kicks are defined similarly, but with under two minutes to go in the fourth or at any point beyond regulation. And yet again, the league has excelled, this time to the tune of 2.23 KVA. Carlson's miss falls into this bucket, too, and Shrader remains the leader at 1.23 KVA since both clutch kicks also met the superclutch parameters.

If you feel like NFL kickers, as a whole, have basically refused to miss in the highest-leverage spots thus far in 2026, you're as on the money as they've been.

More kicker takeaways from Week 4

The Jaguars got the absolute best version of Cam Little: As nice as it is to feature a kicker with seemingly unlimited range (see: that 70-yard attempt that had the distance in Week 3), Cam Little looked even better when taking wheelhouse attempts against the Bengals. He sent a 55-yarder as close to perfectly down the center as humanly possible and showcased impressive accuracy from 28 and 54, as well. That makes it all the more baffling that head coach Liam Coen, who's typically a pretty aggressive play-caller, elected to punt with a six-point lead in the fourth quarter rather than trying a 59-yarder with a red-hot kicker.

Goodness gracious does Chad Ryland have some easy power: Just watch the 60-yard kick again. Notice the complete lack of mechanical breakdown in Chad Ryland's swing. This field goal would've been good from well over 60 yards and soared straight down the pipes. There's power, and then there's easy power.

Dominic Zvada keeps looking like a veteran kicker in inclement weather: After he featured in last week's notebook for his rookie-year excellence in the field-goal and kickoff games, Dominic Zvada has continued to impress. Perhaps benefitting from the inclement weather common to his Michigan days, he drilled 39- and 50-yard field goals through significant crosswinds and, during a portion of the proceedings in which the wind had died down, received a perfect accuracy grade on his successful 52-yarder. The Giants have to love what they've got here.

Brandon Aubrey's KVA is not indicative of his quality: Don't be too worried about Brandon Aubrey even if the Cowboys' kicking superstar sits just within the bottom 10 on the KVA leaderboard. He's missed four times this season, and while we won't excuse the missed PAT against the Giants after a dumb Javonte Williams penalty pushed Dallas back 15 yards, it's tough to worry much about the other three. The Ravens swallowed up a 59-yard attempt, the Texans used a clean rush up the middle to stuff a 62-yard try and his 65-yard boot against Houston had the necessary power but just missed outside left. He'll be fine.

The Bills need to test Tyler Bass before it really matters: The Bills can realistically harbor Super Bowl expectations with a fantastic roster helmed by Josh Allen, but they might want to let Tyler Bass kick a few long ones before the importance of the games really starts to skyrocket. The veteran kicker missed the entire 2025 campaign with hip and groin issues, and he hasn't had a chance to show he's fully himself again. His lone blemish in 2026 comes from a PAT he pulled outside left, but his longest field-goal attempt is a meager, low-leverage 46-yarder that broke a 0-0 tie in the first quarter against Houston. The entirety of his field-goal resume this season involves kicks from 27, 28, 33, 34, 38 and 46.

NFL doink counter after Week 4

1. Eddy Pineiro (2)
The 49ers kicker remains the only specialist to record a pair of doinks this season. His most recent came on a PAT gone wrong in Week 3.

2(tie). Cameron Dicker, Wil Lutz, Chad Ryland, Ryan Fitzgerald (1 apiece)
Ryan Fitzgerald joined the group with one of his two PAT misses against the Lions in Week 4. His aim point from the left hash was consistently off as one extra-point try clanged directly off the right upright, and his follow-up attempt was even worse, missing outside right. He later tried a 33-yard field goal from the right hash and didn't approach the ball with any confidence, dialing back the power significantly to make sure he found the center of the uprights (he did).

NFL Kick of the Week: Tyler Loop keeps the good vibes going with a 64-yard bomb for the Ravens

One week after walking off the Rio de Janeiro game with a memorable 56-yarder, Tyler Loop kept the heroics going. Not only did his 64-yard bomb go through the uprights with room to spare horizontally, but it also would've been good from about 67. Loop has quite a bit of power in that right leg, and he's starting to find more consistency for the Ravens in his second season (a 40-yard duck hook against Tennessee notwithstanding).

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