With do-it-all Jack Fox around, Detroit Lions don't have to scramble for emergency kicker
The Houston Texans found themselves in a precarious situation last week when kicker Ka'imi Fairbairn suffered a quad injury in the first half of their game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
With Fairbairn unavailable, the Texans went for two after three straight second-half touchdowns before using their emergency kicker — running back Dare Ogunbowale — to attempt a go-ahead 29-yard field goal midway through the fourth quarter.
Ogunbowale, a soccer and football star in high school, made the kick, and after the Texans rallied to win on a late touchdown, his heroics left many wondering about emergency kicking situations around the NFL.
"My son said, 'Well, why doesn’t the punter kick?'" Lions special teams coordinator Dave Fipp said Thursday. "I’m like, 'Well, the punter can’t kick a lot of times.' And their punter, Cam Johnson, (is) an Australian guy, and those guys didn’t grow up kicking the ball. Sometimes it’s crazy how bad the punter is at actually kicking the ball."
The Lions (6-2) are more fortunate than most teams because they have a dual-threat punter of sorts in Jack Fox.
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Fipp said Fox would be the Lions' emergency kicker if something happened to Riley Patterson in-game. The Lions have a second kicker, Michael Badgley, on their practice squad who they could elevate to their gameday roster in the event of a mid-week injury.
"Fox is valuable," Fipp said.
Fox, who made the Pro Bowl as a punter in 2020, has never kicked field goals in an NFL game, but typically handles kickoffs for the Lions. He was a punter, kicker and quarterback in high school, where he set a Missouri state record with 17 made field goals as a senior at Ladue Horton Watkins High.
Though Fox rarely works on field goals in practice, Fipp said the Lions have their emergency long snappers work on snapping every week in case they're needed in a game, something that almost came to fruition in the Lions' Week 8 win over the Las Vegas Raiders when Scott Daly suffered a season-ending knee injury in the second half.
The Lions did not attempt a punt or field goal after Daly's injury, though Fipp said they "had a plan in place" in case one was needed.
As for why many punters can't also handle field goals, Fipp said the mechanics involved make it "a totally different kick."
"I thought the same thing like, these guys grow up, they’re kicking, they’re punting, didn’t they grow up kicking a ball? Or kicking a soccer ball?" Fipp said. "You wouldn’t think it’d be that hard, but I've seen a number of punters, it looks rough when they try to kick it. Maybe they’re just doing that so they don’t have to be the emergency guy."
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why Detroit Lions won't have a Houston Texans-like kicking situation
