In defense of the NFL pretending Harrison Butker’s 69-yard field goal never happened

Exactly right, Dale. I was having sea bass with a senior rules committee member a few weeks ago, and we spent two hours lamenting this exact trend. The modern kicker is too coddled. In my era, if a kicker even looked at the 50-yard line, the special teams coordinator would make him walk home. Now, they are stretching on customized yoga mats and demanding space in the record book for an exhibition kick. It is a complete collapse of institutional discipline.

You cannot build a respectable environment in the locker room if your offense knows they only need to cross their own 40-yard line to get three points. It breeds complacency. Why would Patrick Mahomes even bother looking for a tight end when he can just sit down on the turf and let the kicker handle the rest of the afternoon?

The fans demanding this kick be validated simply do not respect the delicate ecosystem of the league. You let one 69-yard preseason field goal in, and suddenly you have to acknowledge every rogue achievement that happens on a football field. Before long, we will be counting joint-practice interceptions, Thursday afternoon walkthrough touchdowns, and the time a punter accidentally threw a spiral during warmups. It is a slippery slope toward absolute anarchy.

Some bleeding-heart stat nerds are crying foul. They argue that physics is physics, and a 69-yard kick is an objective reality that occurred in the physical universe. But the NFL record book does not exist to document reality. It exists to enforce a narrative. It is a sacred text, and you do not just scribble a new chapter into a sacred text just because a guy in a single-digit jersey got lucky with a tailwind in August.

Let Butker brag to his friends. Let him post the clip on social media. But when the history of this great game is written, that 69-yard kick will be exactly where it belongs: completely eradicated from the institutional memory of the National Football League, just as God intended.