The NFL is determined to prove Minnesota Vikings kicker Will Reichard did not hit a camera wire on his missed field goal in Week 5. The league reviewed video of the kick from multiple angles, and determined “the ball in no way made any contact with the cable,” an NFL spokesperson told ESPN.
The kick, and the controversy surrounding it, seemed to die out after a few weeks, but came back into the public’s consciousness after Amazon Prime announcer Al Michaels brought it up during the “Thursday Night Football” game between the Vikings and Los Angeles Chargers in Week 8.
Advertisement
As Reichard lined up for a kick, Michaels mentioned the kicker’s Week 5 miss, saying, “His only miss this year was when he hit a wire — with the camera — in London!”
NFL rules analyst Walt Anderson heard that comment and reportedly called Amazon Prime rules analyst Terry McAulay to say the NFL did not believe Reichard’s miss was the result of a ball hitting a camera wire.
Eventually, Michaels was forced to backtrack on his statement during the broadcast, according to ESPN.
“The league wants to take my lunch away because I said before that Reichard’s only miss came when he hit a wire in London.” Michaels said. “The league says, ‘No, no, it was an optical illusion.’ [That’s] not what Reichard thinks.”
Reichard’s miss in Week 5 did not ultimately affect the outcome of the game, which the Vikings won 21-17 over the Cleveland Browns.
Advertisement
Coming into Week 8, that was Reichard’s only field-goal miss of the season. That prompted Reichard’s agent — Jim Ivler — to contact the NFL to see whether the league would remove the attempt from Reichard’s stats. Ivler didn’t want his client’s numbers to suffer due to a piece of equipment on the field.
Ivler claimed the person he contacted at the NFL initially said the attempt could be removed. Later, however, that same person reportedly told Ivler it was actually not possible to remove Reichard’s attempt.
Reichard also missed a field-goal attempt in Week 8, giving him two misses on the season.
Determined to prove Reichard’s kick did not hit the camera wire, the NFL issued a lengthy statement to ESPN claiming it was “not possible for the cables to interfere with the flight of the ball.”
“There is no video evidence of the football making contact with the broadcast cable. The day after the game, we were in touch with our colleagues who handled production responsibilities for the NFL Network broadcast. Those engineers, who were on site in London, verified that because of the position of the camera behind the kicker and where the cables were mounted in the stadium, it was not possible for the cables to interfere with the flight of the ball. The slow-motion replay of the kick that went to air was from a low-end zone camera on the tight end of its lens, which compresses the plane of focus. That’s why the football and one of the cables are visible in the same shot, but the ball in no way made any contact with the cable.”
The play, however, clearly irked the NFL, which also reportedly showed it to team owners at a league meeting in October in an attempt to prove on-field equipment was not to blame for the miss. At that meeting, NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent and Anderson reportedly said Reichard’s kick did not hit the camera wire because the ball did not have “a weird spin.” The league reportedly showed footage of the kick in which the camera wires were highlighted before Reichard made contact with the ball.
Advertisement
While Vikings special teams coach Matt Daniels and Reichard still seem skeptical based on how the ball moved on Reichard’s Week 5 miss, the kicker said he’s ready to put the controversy behind him.
The NFL, on the other hand, wants to set the record straight, no matter how much time has passed since the kick.
Read the full article here
