Super kickers: Simply the best

Associated Press

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.

If the Super Bowl comes down a last-second field goal, might as well head for the fridge. If your team has the ball, the question is not whether it’s going to be good — it will — but whether to pop the cork on that bottle of champagne you’ve been saving for some big occasion.

NFL kickers had their best season ever by several important measures, and the two on call Sunday — Seattle’s Steven Hauschka and Denver’s Matt Prater — finished ranked Nos. 1 and 2.

Including the playoffs, Hauschka was 39 of 41 (95.1 percent; the NFL average was 86.5), including a perfect 3 of 3 from 50 yards and beyond (NFL average: 66.9). Hauschka’s longest was 53.

Prater was 30 of 32 (93.8 percent), and 7 of 8 from 50-plus. But that last number might be even more impressive, considering his range. Just this past December, in frigid, icy conditions at home against Tennessee, Prater set the league record for the longest field goal ever: 64 yards.

With these two, any ball snapped from an opponent’s 35-yard-line on in is a strong candidate to squeeze through the uprights. The longest made field goal at MetLife this season was 57 yards, by Green Bay’s Mason Crosby, but it came on an unseasonably warm 59-degree day in November.

Still, as desperate measures go, even a kick from the midfield stripe — and perhaps even two steps beyond, roughly 70 yards — is not out of the question.

“I know Prater can hit it,” Hauschka said. “I’ve seen him it several times.”

“Where?” a reporter asked.

“In Denver,” Hauschka replied. “Yeah, he could hit 75 for sure.”

“Without wind?” came the follow-up.

“Yeah,” Hauschka said. “For real.”

Exactly how Hauschka wound up witnessing those feats speaks volumes about the kicking fraternity and the lack of job security. It’s why the profession’s unofficial motto is: “Everybody wants your job during the week. But nobody wants it on Sunday.”

Like Prater and nearly every other NFL kicker, Hauschka went undrafted out of college and Denver was the fifth of the six teams he’s kicked for.