Harrison Butker hit a 69-yard field goal Saturday night that would have broken the NFL record by a full yard. It doesn’t count, and neither did the 9-0 lead it built, because Butker missed the field goal that would have actually won the game later that night.
Tampa Bay turned the ball over on downs at Kansas City’s 49 with eight seconds left in the first half, according to CBS Sports, and the Chiefs sent Butker out from midfield with nothing to lose. He drilled it. A flat, high, no-doubt strike that built a 9-0 halftime lead and briefly made the internet forget this was Preseason Week 2.
That kick would have been the longest field goal in NFL history. It won’t count in the record book because it happened in an exhibition game, and the actual record belongs to Jacksonville’s Cam Little, who hit 68 yards against Las Vegas last season and still owns it.
My brother texted me the highlight within a minute, already treating it like history. I had to remind him it isn’t real yet, and depending on what Butker does with kicks that actually count, maybe never will be.
The NFL’s own account posted it like a coronation.
https://twitter.com/NFL/status/2091330528880607628
It’s a great kick. It’s also, six months and one asterisk from now, a piece of trivia nobody outside Kansas City will bother remembering.
The record that isn’t a record wasn’t even the most telling kick Butker had. After a penalty wiped out the first attempt, he re-kicked an extra point following a 1-yard touchdown run and hit the upright, a miss ugly enough that it should have been the story of the half more than the 69-yarder was.
Then, with a chance to actually win the game late, he missed a 43-yard field goal attempt. Tampa Bay had already erased the 9-0 deficit by then, riding rookie undrafted free agent Jalon Daniels to a 2-yard touchdown pass to Ko Kieft and a Sean Tucker rushing score, with B.T. Potter closing it out on a 46-yard field goal of his own. Final: Buccaneers 16, Chiefs 15.
Butker didn’t seem interested in defending the highlight afterward. “You’ve got to make your kicks. Miss an extra point, miss a game-winner. That’s what I care about, not the 69-yarder or whatever it was,” he said after the game. “I feel like throughout my career when I’ve had big kicks, it’s been a struggle to finish the game.”
Half the league treated this slate as optional, with the stars who skipped preseason entirely sitting out precisely because none of it counts. Butker played, and delivered the best and worst version of himself in the same telecast, which is what happens when fans are asked to read meaning into the Chiefs’ preseason vibes in late August.
Kansas City lost the game either way. That’s the only stat that was ever real.
