The Evolution of the Goalpost with Justin Tucker

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work marketplace. Empower your business and hire the world's most in demand developers, designers, project managers and more at www. Dot up work dot com. D line to me, brown, look at him go gets primostrophe. It almost figures touch show, Oh my god, flagg Let me turn to the number. Every four A four hundred and twenty five pounds on the football field, and no, I am not talking about

a player. Welcome to NFL, explained, it's the podcast where we answering your questions on topics, where you just learn exactly sure who to turn to for those answers. I'm like, yeam along with the d D King Kabwala add what's good today? What's great is goal posts. People are pausing saying goal post today. Let me just tell you this. When the texts are fast and furious from add and she's dropping emojis, I realized that her excitement on today's

podcast is through the roof. Initially did he? I said, how many questions are there around goal posts? Like? They're there, we see them. They function as basically markers on the football field and help us score points. There's actually a lot more to it that I didn't even realize. Well, but that's the point here, Mike, right, you cannot play a game without goal post. You can't mimic the goal post with a cone. I mean, that doesn't quite do it. And if you stop to think about it, there's a

million questions. Why are they yellow? Why are the uprights thirty five ft in the air? How often do you have to replace these things. Does somebody paint them? I mean, what happens if water gets inside a goal post? What happens when Antonio Brown does a crazy celebration against a goal post? Or Jimmy Graham decides to dunk a football a fake football or a real football? Was it a real football that he dunked on the goal post? Real?

But it actually is a dunk because of the height of it, which is another thing that I had learned. But look, we don't have all the answers on this particular subject, so we actually had to go to some of the experts. A little bit later in this show, Ravens kicker Justin Tucker is going to be joining us. He has the most incredible story about a field goal that had Bill Belichick absolutely go nuclear and led to

a major change in the sports. So Justin is gonna be joining us a little bit later in the show. And indeed, I can't help but think back to that Monday night matchup that we just saw, a classic game with the Raiders in Las Vegas and the near game winner, I mean, it almost was a game winner. And of course that game goes over time and Baltimore loses, but I couldn't help but think of the conversation we are going to have with Justin and just watching that thing

go through the upright, so pure. Yeah, And if that had held, Mike, that would have been a seventeen game winning field goal. But I guess number seventeen we'll just have to come later on in the year. It'll happen. And as far as can I call the other guy that you talked to, like the guru of goal posts, well I think he is. I mean I called the guy who's been making goal posts for the NFL since the early nineteen eighties, whose family has been in the

business of making football equipment since the nineteen twenties. Neil Gilman out of Gilman, Connecticut, gave me so much good information. And listen to this, Mike. We were on the phone for an hour and fifteen minutes. WHOA, there is a lot to learn about goal posts. So let's just get into the basics, right. I think it's a good way to start, because I think a lot of ways you have to understand the evolution of goal posts because they're always haven't looked the way that they look right now.

And just for context, the measurements are actually really important and vital. Those uprights d you made reference to it. They extend thirty five ft above the crossbar. They're no less than three inches and no more than four inches in diameter, And I think all of us sort of take a look at those colored ribbons at the top of each post to understand how windy it is. It's the first thing I do every Sunday to figure out which way the winds are swirling. Those things there are

four inches by forty two inches. I never would have imagined that there as long as they are. The crossbar is eighteen feet six inches in length and the top of the face of it is ten ft above the ground, which is why when you say someone's dunking, that's also the height of a regulation NBA RIM So they really do mean it. But the history add behind this stuff is is really fascinating. Wait wait, wait, one more part

though much and that's the goose neck. The goose neck is the actual posts that attaches that you um sort of making letters with my fingers here, that attaches the U into the ground. It goes into a concrete footing, and we are going to be referencing that gooseneck it's the thing that you know, Antonio Brown kind of did something profane against at one point. It's the thing that has padding, didn't Did Joe Horn hide a cell phone inside? Yes? So sharpie was a sharpie hidden in there once too.

I thought the sharpie was out of the sock. Okay, I'm sorry, bad reference right there. But the goose neck, it is a vital part of the goal post. It is, and I'm glad you made reference to that as it will continue to pop up because even that gooseneck wasn't actually there at the start and the history behind it. You gotta go back to n the NFL's first season, the goal post were actually located on the goal line and they look like the letter H, So you actually

had two posts that were sticking into the ground. That changed in seven when the n C Double A moved them back to the end line. And in those days, the NFL actually just followed the college rule books, so the league basically just mimic what they were doing. But a dd that change resulted in a reduction of field goals and tied games. Who the hell wants a tie game? No one does, and the league said, we definitely don't

want this, so they created their own rule book. In nineteen thirty three, they moved the goal post back to the goal line. Not surprisingly, the field goals increased twofold and the number of tie games way down, which is certainly big time for fans that like results. Not much changed a d D for thirty three years until nineteen sixty six. The NFL goes, you know what, let's move those goal posts. They should be offset from the goal line,

and they're actually painted bright yellow. And those uprights sitting above the crossbar. Do you know why they were painted yellow? I would imagine just from a visual standpoint with TV. Maybe that's right because the NFL started having greater interest in playing games at night, and the yellow showed up much better than the white did in a dark sky. But you know how they came up with yellow as opposed to like neon pink. I was just gonna ask, what why yellow as opposed to just any sort of

neon color that you could have chosen. Well, Neon is a key here, because the NFL did actually really want a neon color, and they went to a company in Cleveland called day Glow and said, okay, show us all your colors. And the pink was, you know, bright and prank. The orange was really a nice day Glow orange. But the problem with orange for the NFL is that that was the Brown's color, and it was also the Bengals color, and the NFL wanted a color that no team was using,

and so nobody is using Saturn yellow. But here, let me give you something else about the color. And this is what Neil Gilman of Gilman Gear told me is that initially this Saturn yellow paint had to be bought from day Glow in Cleveland. And what teams would have to do, or what Gilman Gear or whatever goal post manufacturers would have to do, is paint all the aluminum

posts with a white primer. Then they would paint them the saturn yellow, and then they would do a third cote of clear lacquer, which was supposed to seal it. But what happens in the sun, things sort of melt and chip away and they fade. Remember when we talked about faded uniforms in the Arizona Cardinals, And if you don't remember, then you need to go listen to one

of our first episodes. But anyway, the paint would fade, and Neil Gilman told me that every year he'd get a call from some groundskeeper somewhere saying, I have an ugly set of goal posts. So then it was actually Neil Gilman who figured out, let me take a chip from one of these goal posts to Sherwin Williams, and he asked them, can you color match this in a powder coating. So now all of the goal posts have a powder coating, which means that they are baked on.

They do not fade. They are not supposed to chip. And if you are replacing a goal post, it is not because the color has faded. It's for another reason, which of course we will get into. Sherwin Williams coming up big for us. I love it so actually it sounds like I shouldn't say it sounds like it really is reality. Nineteen sixty six a huge year for the

NFL as it pertains to goal posts. But dd that next year, nineteen sixty seven, the league actually made the decision to require the slingshot type of posts, as opposed to the letter H one that was back in the day that actually had two posts sticking into the ground. Because it was the letter H, the league was a little more concerned about safety, and you can understand with an extra post sitting at that goal line like that

becomes a little bit of an issue. But then in the league they make the push, they take the goal post and they move them back to that end line. And that change was made to encourage offenses to score more touchdowns as opposed to field goals. Right, we all like t D as opposed to the f G. And it worked in a big way. And a d D maybe the most important thing about all this. It eliminated the most heart wrenching moments you can have in the game of football, like this one from Super Bowl seven.

Second down seven ago, the redskin just short of the ten yard line. Earlier in this half, they reached the seven team. This has been their deepest beneface for the game, Dummer. And then the end gong and hit the goal boat. Jerry Smith, the tight end looked like he was open cutting behind the goal post deep in the end zone. I know I'm not the only one thinking it a d D. I have a topic from one of our next episodes, the evolution of play by play broadcasters. Can

you imagine a Super Bowl game? This is Super Bowl seven, It's the fourth quarter. You got Billy Kilmer, the Washington quarterback. He misses and it's sort of mentioned there, but a wide open Jerry Smith in the end zone. The ball actually bounces off of the post. That Dolphins win that game fourteen to seven. So where's the excitement there? Add we have to do an evolution of play by play voices for the NFL. I feel like you've got a little more excitement right now than was felt in that moment.

Marty Clickman is going like what someone needs to get coached up here in a big way. Look, it's fascinating here because once you make the move a D D and you move those goalposts back to that end live uh. Former Brown's coach Paul Brown, and we actually chronicled that story one of our last episodes, but he told Sports Illustrated in vo the whole end zone is open for pass patterns. Now. The goal posts were in effect another safety man. When you get inside the twenty, you couldn't

run or pass around them. It was hard to punk or pass coming out of the end. So, I mean, this is a pivotal moment for the NFL. Just that one change, and maybe we're talking about a different result in Super Bowl number seven. But the only other thing I want to add here a d D because I know I did it when I was a kid. You're playing football, Can you just imagine this. You're a wide receiver, you're running acrossing route. You actually could grab the pole,

spin around quickly and go in the opposite direction. I mean, like that was like an actual thing. Can you imagine seeing that now in the modern day NFL game? It be sort of comical because the guys are so damn fast and they cut so well. But that was happening back in the day in the NFL. Well. I think that this is again justin Tucker will talk to us later about a decision that he thinks was a no brainer. I think moving the goal post back is one of

those no brainers. For sure, it is, but a d D. The conversation that you had that led to some of these most incredible stories around goal posts, and yes, they are incredible. Do you want to tease one of them here? Because you had the conversation. I don't even know what the most teasable thing is because I will be hearing all of these stories for the first time when we do it. Kickers are a very special breed. One of my favorite stories that Neil Gilman told me was about

Chip low Miller. Chip Low Miller was a kicker. He was a kicker for the Rams in ninet when they had freshly moved from l A to St. Louis. Chipp Loow Miller went out to the stadium to these brand new goal posts and he said to the grounds crew, m something's wrong with this crowds bar. And the grounds cree said uh. He said, no, no, no, something's wrong with this crossbar. The grounds crew brought out of tape

measure and guess what the crossbar was? One in short, according to what Neil Gilman told me, so, hey, you can always trust a kicker's eyes spatial awareness. I don't know how else to describe that. That is absolutely amazing. That one inch when it's ten ft up. That's something that you would be able to pick out with just your naked eye. That is an unbelievable story. And there's more of those covering up next here on NFL explaining

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to five G networks. Your results may vary. Not an endorsement speed comparison to Media and Verizon four G LTE speeds downloads very based on network conditions and five G content optimization. He heavy William More ragged under the end zone by Jimmy Graham on the touchdown strike a purty four yard Jimmy Graham all fired up in the end zone and he does it use the little dunk. But it was like that time he was kind of hanging on the rail. I really thought the gold posts were

gonna come down. Look like it, Deman donan look like a little cocka do you right now? You know that? Welcome back to NFL, explained my Kam and a da kin kawaala with you coming up in just a couple of minutes, Ravens Kicker, he's a Super Bowl champion. Justin Tucker is going to be stopping by an awesome conversation with him. But I now officially have an expert on

all things skull posts. I think when you spend an hour fifteen minutes on the phone with the Guru of goal posts, you're gonna be able to drop some significant knowledge. Is there one thing before we get into some of the details. One thing from your conversation with Neil Gilman from Gilman Gear that stood out to you the most just how passionate he was about it. So the Gilman family had a textile mill in the town of Gilman, Connecticut,

back in the eighteen nineties. So Neil Gilman's grandparents were running this textile mill and then his dad, Marty, was playing football at Yukon. He was an offensive lineman. And this is in the nineteen twenties. And Neil tells me that, you know, in the nineteen twenties, when you're playing football, what do you use as a tackling dummy? You use your teammates. You know that there's a blocking dummy. There's

nothing like that. So his dad is really smart. Dad one day comes home to his parents textile mill and he grabs this big canvas bag and he starts stuffing it with these by products from the mill. He asks his parents to sew it back up and it's a blocking dummy. So he takes it to his coach and he says, hey, coach, I don't want to hit anybody. I don't want anybody to hit me while we're practicing. I'm just gonna hit this, and the coach says to him,

that's wonderful. Can you make me six more So that Marty Gilman finishes playing football, graduates at Yukon, goes home to work at the textile mill, and he creates a whole new sideline which is football training equipment. And you know, he said, this is his calling in life. He went on to invent the blocking and the tackling sled, the pop up dummy, all of that. Then his son, Neil goes on to be a football player at Harvard. He was a defensive back, not quite as big as his dad,

I guess. And then he graduated and he joined the company in nineteen seventy seven. And I think I said this earlier. His family has been making goal posts for the NFL since the early nineteen eighties. At one point, Gilman gear made twenty four of the thirty one NFL stadium's goal posts. Neil Gilman is the guy that came up with the idea of putting a hinge on a goal post. Surely you remember, Mike, like back in the nineteen eighties when fans would rush the field, You're a

pack twelve guy. Where I mean Wasn't that a big deal at Stanford? Didn't that happen all? Yeah, you know, you get the Well, the game obviously between conship is certainly the big one. The bands on the field, which is a very different call and than we heard earlier in the podcast with a pass it hit the goal post, right, So you have all these students rushing the field and

they're trying to take the goal post down. And as Neil Gilman says it to me, well, you know what if we take away the reason to take the goal post down, which is creating a hinge so that the groundscrew can come out and immediately sort of topple the uprights, well then maybe people won't be trying to attack goal posts.

And then a few years later, George Wiley, who was a retired Pasadena police officer who had turned into an inventor, went one step further and he devised a mechanism that uses hydraulics to actually bring the goal post down, and he can do it in less than ten seconds, and so that way you don't even need the two ground screw guys to pull it down. And one notable thing though, pay attention to this when you watch this season, Mike. Those hydraulics make the gooseneck that much bigger to get

that system attached to the goose neck. So the pads around the goose necks in San Francisco and Foxborough are much thicker than any place else. And two stadiums in the f felled San Francisco and New England both have this hydraulic system to their goal posts. So note to Patriots fans and forty Niners fans, don't rush the field. It just won't work, didn't They don't want anyone rushing the field. Safety, safety for everyone involved. But how often

are these things even replaced? Like I would imagine you've got like this four pounds goal post. You stick that bad boy into the ground like you're good for decades. Well, you should be good for about twenty years. Right. They're made of aluminum. The reason that they are made of aluminum is so that they don't rust, so that they're you know, somewhat lightweight, such that people can actually put them up. You don't need a crane to take them

up and down, which you would with steel. Lightweight four pounds I mean relatively speaking as compared to steel, which would require so much more rebar and things that I don't necessarily know so much about. But in any case, they are made of aluminum. They don't rust. Now that we know that they're powder coated, they shouldn't really fade

in color. But you know, natural disasters happen, and apparently in a place like Miami, where there are a lot of hurricanes, those uprights need to be replaced fairly frequently. And in a place like Buffalo, where there is indeed bad weather and where you know the lake effects, snow can do some weird things. Helped create one of the improvements in gold posts, and that again this is courtesy

of Neil Gilman telling me this story. Once there was so much snow, moisture got inside the uprights, and then the uprights started shaking, vibrating, almost like a tuning fork. And so Neil Gilman says that the groundskeeper they're called him and said, oh my gosh, the gold post is vibrating like a tuning fork. And they figured out what had happened is that moisture had gotten inside the upright and it would expand and detract, expand to track. That's

what was making it vibrate. So now gold posts I'll have a wheep hole inside the goose neck, you know, that part that goes into the round, so that any moisture that gets in can actually bleed out. So in theory, a goal post should indeed last for twenty years. A goal post should be able to withstand seventy mile per hour winds. And because it is in four parts, the two uprights, so are the parts that are replaced the

most frequently. So I'm actually glad that you brought up the winds because I looked this up because I had seen some numbers that indicated anywhere from like seventy five to a hundred miles an hour is what those goal posts should be able to withstand. So I'm like, well, what happens if tornado comes through? Does that thing going to rip down one of those goal posts? I didn't even realize there were different categories of tornadoes A F one,

F two, three, four, and five. The low end one is the F one, and that just kind of a peels roofs off of you know, some homes maybe just like not completely off but can move some cars slightly on the road. And F one a moderate tornado is roughly seventy three two hundred and twelve miles per hour, so goal post should be okay. Once you get to F two and greater adity, there's pretty good chance you're not going to see that thing stuck in the ground. Okay.

So that's making me think of two things. One, have you previously worked at the Weather Channel? No, I would be awful at that anything green screen, Like I keen. Even sometimes when I do new ships for NFL Network and I have to straighten my tie and I'm looking at my monitor view, I'm always going in the wrong direction. So I would be the world's worst weather person. But I was sort of fascinated by it. I mean, that's

very fair. And now we know that you're not aiming for Jim Cantory's job where someone has to hold onto your leg and you stand in I'm very content being a co host of NFL explained with you. Which leads me to my other question about goal posts. If they're not getting replaced all that often, I would imagine the signal, like just even moving something that large logistically is you know, it's not like you know, I can order one of these things on Prime and next day it's they're ready

to go. There's got to be some nuance here well, for sure, And there's two pieces to this. You talk about weather. So in general, the way that Gilman Gear does it is that they have the parts. They have aluminum always there, and if they needed to, if they had all the ingredients, as Neil Gilman put it to me, then they could indeed make a goal post in about three days. And of course you have a lot of

experts working on it. You have your welders, you have your role benders, and the secret sauce and all of this, of course is the bending, because you have to make sure that you have the perfect contours inside the pipe and that everything is at the exact right angle. And as we talked about earlier, your inches, your measurements better

all be perfect. You mentioned whether so. Neil Gilman's actually said that the quickest he had to turn around a goal post was when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, and as we all know, the Superdome was turned into an evacuation shelter, the Saints had moved to San Antonio, and then when New Orleans was coming back for that very first game of the two thousand six season, for whatever reason, nobody real is that the goal posts weren't necessarily in

pristine shape, and this is how important they are. It really mattered to the NFL that everything looked as beautiful as possible, and so there was this big rush to get the Super Dome ready. And at the time the NFL wanted new goal posts, shiny new goal post and Neil Gilman said he got a call from a vice president there. He was told, we don't care what it cost, but we need you to express it. And so fortunately

they had the parts in three days. They put it together and yes they did indeed need a very very special truck. But once Neil Gilman had to send goal post to Australia for an NFL game there that was a little bit different. That was sort of an unmovable what do I call it? It was like it was mounted on a steel plate, like a roll away goal post. You know how you have like a rollaway basketball hoop in your driveway. They made a goal post like that.

They shipped it via air freight and Neil kilb actually said, I think we left them there. There's no idea where they are now. They also airfraided the first goal post to London the first game that was at Wimbley Stadium in London. Gilman gear did that and uh Neil Gilman said he actually went out there just to make sure

that they were set up correctly. But you know, when you talk about replacing goal posts, part of why we are going to talk to Justin Tucker is that Justin Tucker forced the replacement of every single upright in the NFL. You do know this, right, Oh, I'm aware, and we're going to relive the moment that sparked all of that when he joins us in a couple of minutes. But

you're kind of touching on this, right. So thirty ft two then five more, that's got to be a real hassle to add those extra feet across the board around the NFL. So really quickly, let's tell everybody the story so that Justin doesn't have to waste his time telling

us exactly this. It's a Raven's Patriots game, two thousand twelve season, and he kicks not one of his prettiest kicks, and the ball goes so high that there seems to be some sort of question as it's over the upright whether it would have been inside the upright if it extended or if it was wide. Now, Patriots coach Bill Belichick, you know what he thought. He thought it was wide, and as you said earlier, he lost his mind over it.

So Bill Belichick and the Patriots proposed a rule change, and they said, instead of thirty foot uprights, let's make them forty. He wanted them ten ft higher. So the NFL called Neil Gilman and said can we do this? And Mike, do you know what the answer was? Well, the answer was we could, but it would cost way more money because the way that the goose neck is in the ground, the weight that the crossbar can support,

you could only go up five additional feet. If you wanted to replace the entire field goal and dig new holes and put in more concrete and whatever that whole process of creating a post is, then sure you could go forty feet. But if you wanted to leave the goose neck and leave the crossbar and just replace the uprights, then the engineer said you could only go up five ft, five ft more from the original thirty. So that was the compromise. Five ft. It is we're all about the

Benjamin's right. So the Tucker rule officially kind of in place, and we'll actually hear more about this from Justin Tucker, so I'm going to classify it as a wardrobe malfunction kind of that change the course of history. Only a few people know the story until now. So a Super Bowl champion, the Ravens kicker Tucker, is gonna be joining us, so'll explain what happened in what is arguably one of the most iconic kicks in NFL history. This podcast is

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talker for the wish favorite. Wilford took his helmet off spre right for the official. This one go over the upright and was really close. Well, I'll tell you why the upbrings extend through the heavens, so be kicking over

the top of it. It's good. One of those magical moments in football, especially if you were a Ravens fan, to hear the call in that tent twelve, that game winning field goal against the Patriots of Super Bowl champion of four time Pro Bowler the Ravens kicker Justin Tucker who put it through the sort of through the uprights. He joins us right now, just to appreciate you giving us some time. Man, you tell me, I don't know if you remember the details of all your kicks, That

one to me sort of stands out. But what do you remember from that ball game and certainly those final moments It definitely went through first and form both U. Hey, man, Like, if if one of the worst kicks in my career was a game winner on Sunday Night football, I'll totally just have to settle with that, that's okay, But that one in particular was definitely like a funny kick. Came

off my foot a little awkwardly. A lot of people don't know this, but on my drive step with my right foot too, you know, jump into the ball, my shoe like split in half, like the soule split off the bottom of the shoe, so it just kind of like dangling there. And I think that might have made my foot position at ball contact just a little bit more awkward, thus sending the ball right from where I

was aiming it. But I mean, here's the thing. Only two people in the world know exactly where that ball went, because we had like the best vantage point and that Sam Cook who was holding the ball, and myself, and the TV copy makes it look like that ball went over the upright or almost even wide. But I can assure you it was good by about six inches, which is way below our standard. You know, we want to

split everything right down the middle. But I can't assure you that that kick was in fact through the uprights, just an in is in first of all. Second of all, I really hope you got a new shoe deal out of that, or at least have a new shoe acre. So I don't want to uh disparage the manufacturers of the shoes because you know, it was just a flukey incident.

But we're all set. I appreciate the guys putting no swushes on my feet right well, and there's a plug right there, you know, even though I don't actually have a formal deal with them, you know, but like maybe you guys can help me broker deal with those guys in organ We will do this. We will make sure

that they download this episode. Whole takeaway, right, the whole takeaway from all of this, though, Justin, is that you've got so under Bill belichick skin that he wanted to rip up the way kicking has been measured for decades. What is the feeling knowing that you compelled a major rule change. I think it was about time, you know. To be perfectly honest, He's absolutely right that the goal post needed to be extended higher just due to the

nature of the evolution of kicking over time. I mean, guys are hitting the ball with more force and more height, and as are just continuing to get better and better. So I mean it was only a matter of time until something needed to be done. But to me, it makes all the sense, the whole idea of the uprights extending into the heavens, and if a ball goes over

the upright, it's considered good and it makes sense. But if you can just kind of take a little bit of the guesswork out of it for the officials, then you might as well make that change. Just you know, you strike me as a technical kicker, someone who knows every single minute detail with your craft, the goal post in particular. You know, I've heard other athletes and other sports talk about equipment, their manufactured, they're all supposed to be identical. Is that your read on goal posts when

you go to the various stadiums. We definitely emphasize being a detail oriented here when it comes to, you know, making kicks. Every little thing does matter, Nothing is inconsequential as far as we're concerned. At the same time, the field is a hundred yards long, and it's fifty three and a third or whatever the number is yards wide, and the hash marks are always where they are. You pick a target line in between those uprights based on the wind, based on the field conditions, and then you

aim at that target point as central as possible. The uprights just kind of happened to be there. And granted, they are important because you have to hit the ball through them to get credit for anything that you're doing out there if you're a kicker. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things I love about my job descript and it's so black and white. You know, the kicks are either do it or they're not. And obviously the

goal posts are a determining factor. But I'd rather be less familiar with the goal post than more, because if you get to know the goal post too well, then you know you're doing the balls off of them, and that's no fun for anybody. I mean, that's a very very fair point. And it's funny because I've actually talked to some kickers who can tell if the crossbar is an inch too short or if the upright leans in

a little bit. But having said that, I mean, are there any stadiums where the goal posts are kind of the wonkiest, where it does feel like the wind shakes the uprights too much or you have become two from elier with the uprights? I mean, I want to say, league wide, they are the same, you know, and they have to be right. I mean, Um, I don't know.

Maybe you guys are bringing up some points. Maybe I don't have to, you know, study the structural integrity of the uprights every time I go to a new stadium, but justin I don't know. In Cleveland, it looks like those upright shake a lot. Well they do, because you know, it's December, it's the A S. C. North. I mean, the wind is whipping around anywhere we happen to play. I feel like any time I happen to take the field, it can be like it can be today at practice

an hour ago. It can be totally calm and still the whole practice, and then as soon as you know, the field goal unit is called onto the field, those little flags at the top the upright, all of a sudden they just start moving around and it's like clockwork every single time. But but at the end of the day, you know you were still aiming in the center of the uprights, even if they are being jostled around by the wind. Justine, you're not territorial with the goalposts, are you.

Like if someone happens to be celebrating near your goal post, or maybe just doing a little bit of dunk celebration, that doesn't irk you doesn't. Absolutely not. Okay, that is not a thought that has ever crossed my mind. They're just a part of the field. I'm glad that they continue to be a part of the field. You know, you've got some TV analysts that say they want to

rip them down and take kickers out of football. So you know, maybe from that standpoint, I'll be territorial of the upright, not from opposing players dumping over the goal post, but sports media members who want to figuratively take them down. Well, what did you think last year? Surely you saw this right when Oklahoma States threw up on its video board yellow bars when the Texas kicker was kicking. Uh, it's

low Kia savage move. But I kind of love it though, Um really I love it from like the competitive standpoint, Like is it ethical? Probably not. I mean, like it's already tough enough to make kicks as it is, Like, why are we gonna throw up some of diffal uprights? I don't think it's maybe, I mean, who knows, maybe it is legal, um, because it's not like the right thing to do. I mean, you want guys to do well,

you know you don't. You don't want to like just outwardly root against them, you know, and you know, like the like, just let the players and the coaches settle it out on the field. You don't need the video department in the booth throwing anything into the mix that

doesn't need to be there. Mike, you can totally see Justin calling up the M and T video board operator after this, right like hey, we were hey, we would we would never It's tough enough to make kicks in our stadium for for anybody else, you know, like like hey, like I said, let the players in the coaches just settle it on the field. What about that, which is the toughest stadium in the NFL to kick in? In

your mind? I've said this before. I do believe our stadium is the toughest place to make kicks in the National Football League. I don't know if you guys know, but like the way the schedule is kind of constructed year in and year out, if you play with one team for eight consecutive years, you will complete your thirty two stadium tour of the NFL. Like you will play in every single stadium. Now, granted, a couple get built here and there, or a team may you know relocate.

So at this point, the only stadium I have not kicked in is so Fi Stadium out in l A. But I've been very fortunate to kick in every single stadium that the league's teams have to offer, and I would the toughest stadiums to kick in ore, you know, mostly in our division. I mean I would just say, like every single one in our division, and then, uh, Buffalo's Stadium is a really really tough place to kick those lakes, is what it is? Just the last one

from uh, the last one from us. You said that you did like the idea of the uprights going taller. Is there any other change you would like to make to the goal posts? Um, I've heard the idea of narrowing the goal post, and maybe that would create an advantage for some over others. But it's already tough enough to make kicks, you know what I'm saying. Like the hallmark of a true professional in any aspect of sport is they make their jobs look easy because they do

them exceedingly well with a high level of consistency. Right, And I've heard people say to me before, like, oh, you make it look easy out there. It's it's never easy. It's just a matter of a lot of hard work coming together in a positive way. So as far as changes to the uprights, like, do we need to make it any harder, I don't think so. Do you need to make it any easier? Absolutely not. I think those strange yellow uprights are perfect just the way they are. Well,

we'll take them. They're beautiful to see on the football field. And Justin, if you, I'm disappointed that you didn't get the shoe deal that you were hoping for, especially after all the attention Zion Williamson had when he was at Duke and he split his sneaker open, uh during a game. I feel like there would have been something like that for you. That was wild. Justin, We're gonna work on this for you. We're gonna get this done. We're okay.

I mean, I'm open. I'm open to the idea. You know, maybe I could be Maybe I could be a Jordan guy. I just I bought like my first parent this offseason. I'm feeling like, you know, I gotta keep up with the swag of this team. You know, I'm the thirty one year old dinosaur dad. It feels like just behind Sam Cook, you know he's been I think he's going into his forty seventh year in the NFL. We uh, I got to keep up with all these guys man Like my swag has got to be taken to the

next level. And maybe you guys could broken the deal with the Jordan guys. I don't know. I love how you go from no deal to like the best possible do that you could have with Jordan Brand. We will work on that. Hey, justin appreciate the insight and the time my friend, and and looking forward to having another conversation with you more on the specifics of of kicking down the road sounds great. Thanks for having you got thanks just so there are no going that is good

water performers. Tell me the truth, Mike, you do know more about goalposts now, right? Are you kidding me? Like the education that I just gapped as epic and would love to hear any kicking stories that people have, maybe their best field goal moment, their worst one, something that sort of resonates with them. You can hit us up on Twitter at my underscore yam at a kick kabwala and of course used that hashtag. NFL explained. I will leave you with this have you ever kicked a field goal? Ad?

Can we save that for another episode? We totally can. I'll tell you mine because I had to do it in Salt Lake City at a Utah football practice. I was there and they had me fielding punts one year. It became kind of like a running joke. Uh. Kyle Whittingham, who's still their head coach. He had Dennis Erickson on his staff, and of course Dennis's, you know, Hall of famer, a guy that coached the NFL a bunch of years, coach in college a bunch of years. He's talking smack

to me. He said, you can't go and kick this field goal, And of course they They literally pushed me out there. The team is circled around me like a half circle. They set it up. My good friend Anthony Heron with the bad snap, my really good friend Jogi Roth with a good hold, put it right through the uprights from no it was really from twenty five. But

the point is I got it through. I mean it was a little bit of a worm burner, but it got through a d D. And that, to me is the best field goal moment that I can possibly think of. It's a lady I you know what, I feel like it didn't happen. If there's not video, there is video proof, and I will send you that video proof. Believe me, we got that one of it. There's enough bloopers of me that if there's something positive, I think I might even have that one on my phone because I'm gonna

hold on to that one forever. But it looks if anyone's got a cool video, I would love to see some of those once again. Use that hashtag NFL Explain. You can follow the NFL Explained podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. And always appreciate you guys taking part in our conversation and send us your questions. We will do

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