Reid Ferguson was preparing for the start of the Buffalo Bills’ season when he received a spreadsheet that has become as important to his job as his cleats and shoulder pads.
Austin Skobel, a 12-year veteran of the Bills’ equipment staff, created a digital, color-coded document to help the Bills’ specialists – particularly Ferguson, their long snapper – organize and track the 60 kicking footballs shipped by the NFL to Orchard Park before training camp.
“I love being able to help any way I can,” Skobel, a Maryland native who earned a graduate degree from Canisius University, told The Buffalo News. “It’s a learning curve for everyone, but I think we’re doing a good job of keeping track.”
At the league meetings in March, the NFL passed a resolution allowing kickers, punters and long snappers to break in footballs before game day. Each of the 32 teams received a shipment of kicking balls, known around the league as “K-balls,” to be used exclusively for kickoffs, safety kicks, punts, field-goal attempts and extra points.
The footballs are labeled 1 through 60, and they contain a chip that is scanned by game officials 2 hours and 15 minutes before kickoff. Each team must pick three to use for a game, and each can be kicked in up to three games this season.
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Previously, special-teams units were presented new footballs 30 minutes to an hour before kickoffs, and equipment staffers such as Skobel quickly went to work on the leather to break them in based on their players’ preferences.
This new process is like the one quarterbacks have followed for nearly two decades. Quarterback Josh Allen isn’t throwing freshly unboxed footballs on game day. Yet, the change to kicking balls has coaches and players around the NFL debating whether the new rule has caused field goals and punts to travel farther than ever.
Kickers have made 66 field goals of 50 or more yards through five weeks this season, on pace for 29 more than 2024 and 51 more than 2023. There have been seven more field goals of 55-plus yards and 10 more attempts at that distance as teams continue to show more confidence in their specialists.
Some coaches and players say broken-in kicking balls aren’t behind the long field goals. Others, Ferguson included, say there is a significant difference between a ball that has been out of the box for a few hours and one that has been handled for weeks or months prior to a game, but it is too soon to know whether it is making kickers and punters more powerful.
“In terms of getting the balls broken in and getting them exactly the way we like, it’s the best rule change we can ask for,” Ferguson said. “You want to live in that perfect area where that ball is perfect for two or three weeks of time until you put too many snaps, kicks and punts on it, to where it’s past its good life. We’re still trying to perfect our process, in terms of when we make a new one and how long we want to use it for before we decide to put it in the bag for game day.”
Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio may have irritated some specialists around the league last week when, unprovoked, the longtime coach told reporters that the new rule has “drastically changed the game.”
Fangio wondered aloud whether Brandon Aubrey, a kicker with arguably the strongest leg in the NFL, will reach 70-plus yards. Aubrey missed a 70-yard kick wide left last season.
Buccaneers kicker Chase McLaughlin hit a 65-yard field goal in a Week 4 loss to the Eagles. It was the longest in the 51-year history of the franchise and the longest outdoor kick in NFL regular-season history. Jaguars kicker Cam Little made a 70-yard field goal in his team’s preseason opener.
Former Ravens kicker Justin Tucker owns the NFL record with a 66-yard field goal in September 2021, and seven of the 12 longest field goals in league history have occurred since 2011.
“It’s almost like they need an asterisk here, like it was the live-ball era or the asterisk for those home runs (Barry) Bonds, (Sammy) Sosa and (Mark) McGwire were hitting,” Fangio said. “The way they’ve changed the ball, the NFL, the kicking ball, has drastically changed the field goals.”
The Buffalo Bills spent all offseason telling anyone who would listen about the maturation of wide receiver Keon Coleman. It took one offensive series Sunday night against the New England Patriots for that conversation to ring a bit hollow.
There are limits to how teams can break in the balls before game day. According to NFL rules, equipment staffers can apply a wet towel or brush the ball by hand. They can use the side of a brush to soften the leather and revive slickness, or the back of a brush to warm the leather and polish. They can’t use heat and cannot submerse the ball in water. Altering the surface or shape of the football is prohibited.
Game officials check and scan the three kicking balls both teams bring before kickoff. If one doesn’t pass this process – there is occasionally an issue with the chip inside the ball – then each club gets six non-prepped balls to keep at the stadium.
Bills special teams coordinator Chris Tabor was a proponent for the change because of fairness. If quarterbacks can break in a ball before game day, why shouldn’t kickers and punters? Starting in 2008, some NFL teams hired someone to teach their equipment staff how to properly break in a ball in a short amount of time before a game. An expert could give their side a competitive advantage by using the proper technique that doesn’t break the rules.
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In 1999, the NFL mandated the use of unopened K-balls because some equipment managers and specialists were accused of manipulating their footballs to work around the rules.
Starting in 2008, when teams were given a short amount of time to work with the ball before kickoff, equipment staffers had to break in the ball in a cramped room with a game official supervising. From 2020-24, teams had 45 minutes to take the unboxed footballs to their locker room to break them in while specialists stood nearby to provide guidance and suggestions. Game officials then checked the K-balls and approved them for game play.
“When I get it, I try to make the most of it,” Buffalo Bills running back Ray Davis said. “Some games it’s there, some games it’s not. But whenever my opportunity comes, just gotta be ready.”
The time to prepare now is limitless. Strobel’s technique has evolved over the years, in part because of the arrival of former Bills kicker Stephen Hauschka, who, unlike some at his position, preferred the ball to feel a certain way. There may be a simpler explanation behind these longer field goals, though.
“I think kickers are stronger than ever,” Tabor said. “They’re really good at their craft. It’s probably the only position that gets penalized for getting better at their job because extra points got moved back and now we have the dynamic kickoff for more returns. Does the K-ball travel farther? Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t have any science to back it up. I get the question because everyone’s making long field goals and attempting them more.”
Matt Prater hasn’t noticed a difference with a broken-in ball. The Bills’ 41-year-old kicker attributed the number of 55-plus-yard field goals to warm weather. Check again in November, Prater said, and you won’t see much of a change compared to last season. Tabor concurred and joked that he used to refer to the league’s colder months as “return season” because the ball didn’t travel as far on kickoffs.
Prater credited kickers’ improved strength and athletic ability. They are training better than ever. And, if anything, kickers with a powerful leg are penalized because of the change to the dynamic kickoff rule. The NFL wants more points and more long kickoff returns. The Bills alone have covered 28 kickoffs through five games, and they covered 28 in 17 games last season.
Some kickers have tried to perfect a knuckleball that can drop into the landing zone on kickoffs, but they’re starting to miss routine field goals. To Prater, kicking the ball straight has always been the most difficult part of the job.
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“Some coaches are talking about (how) that’s the reason why we’re seeing all of these long kicks. I don’t think that’s accurate at all,” Prater said. “Guys can kick them anyways. Now guys are doing it more consistently, so they’re getting more opportunities. Now I feel like every single guy can make a 60-yarder and everyone can kick touchbacks. Kickers, like every other position, they’re evolving and getting better.”
Long snappers and punters may have benefitted the most from the rule change, because they are gripping the ball on game days.
Prater wasn’t with the Bills until shortly before the regular season began, and the team is on its third punter in five weeks because of Brad Robbins’ release and Cameron Johnston’s injury. The newcomers have deferred to Ferguson’s preferences since he understands the rules and that every field goal or punt must begin with a perfect snap.
The Bills broke in a few balls at a time once training camp began in late July. A ball can’t sit idle for too long because its surface can be negatively affected, especially in cold weather, and the timeliness creates an urgency for all involved to decide on when and how many to break in at once.
Ferguson, Prater and new Bills punter Mitch Wishnowsky decide each week which three balls to use for a game. The goal during the week is to break down the seams and round the ball because it can be slick out of the box. The more round and smooth a ball, the easier it is to grip.
“We are obviously kicking them at practice and breaking them in together,” Ferguson said. “I’m not saying the snapper is the most important, but the feel of the ball, right? The punter is catching it for holds and punts, but the way that the ball feels coming off the hands on a long snap for punts or field goals makes a huge difference, especially when you’re looking at field goals.
“The rotations, it has to be perfect. You get a ball that’s too broken-in, it might be a little slick. You get a ball that’s not broken in enough, it might be a little slick. That’s why you want to live in that perfect two-to-three-week range where the ball is at its peak usage and performance.”
There has not been a noticeable change to the distance of punts. Net punting average is down from 41.4 yards last season to 40.6 yards in 2025 because the dynamic kickoff has led to better field position and fewer punts. There isn’t much of a change to hang time, either, though most special teams coordinators don’t use those statistics to evaluate punting, because the objective is to pin an opponent deep in its own territory, and the goal length of a kick varies based on field position.
Once Ferguson and the Bills’ other specialists choose their three footballs for a game, Skobel prepares a game bag for their designated ball boy. The spreadsheet is updated afterward to ensure that everyone knows how many times a ball has been used and when it must be phased out. When the Bills had a Thursday night game in Week 3, Skobel reminded them beforehand that there wouldn’t be enough practice to break in a new ball. Have them ready and picked out, he said.
The Bills’ 11 field-goal attempts are tied for 14th-most in the NFL and one more than at this point last season. Prater has made kicks of 25, 43, 32, 28, 52, 33, 48, 35, 31 and 45 yards. The 19-year veteran holds the NFL record for most career 50-plus-yard field goals. Twelve years ago, he made a 65-yard kick. He’s as interested as anyone to see what the numbers look like in January.
Field-goal distance has gradually increased over the past 20 years. There were only 40 field goals of 50-plus yards in 2006, compared to 104 in 2015. Last season, kickers made a record 195. This year, they are on pace to make 224.
For now, he and others with the Bills say it is too soon to tell whether the K-ball change is impacting kicks.
“Once teams and specialist groups have their process nailed down, what they want their gameday K-ball to look like, you’ll start to get a better read on the effect that it’s having,” Ferguson said. “I don’t think you can definitively say yet the new K-ball rules are adding two yards to your average field-goal distance.”
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