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By Jordan Sigler
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Coming off a Super Bowl victory, the Kansas City Chiefs gave Harrison Butker a four-year $25.6 million contract extension during training camp in 2024.
Butker made a career-high 94.3 percent of his field goal attempts in 2023. He made all 11 field goal attempts and eight extra point attempts in the postseason, helping the Chiefs win their third Super Bowl.
The 2024 regular season included changes to the league's kickoff rules, causing kickers to try and change up their approach to kickoffs. As Butker was testing out new ways to kick the ball during the 2024 and 2025 seasons, his field goal percentage suffered.
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Butker made 84 percent of his attempts in 2024 and 84.2 percent of his attempts in 2025, his two of his worst years besides the 2023 campaign when he was dealing with an ankle issue.
When speaking to reporters on Thursday, Butker said his experiments with kickoffs hurt his field goal percentage. He's decided to keep his contact with the ball on kickoffs similar to how he hits field goals, hoping to improve his percentage of makes.
“Field goals matter the most,” Butker said, via a transcription from Pro Football Talk. “Trying to hit those knuckleballs and the funny kickoffs maybe affected the field goals a little bit. I think halfway through the season last year I said, forget the kickoffs — not forget the kickoffs — but I’m just gonna hit a high hang time ball, good location, just focus on the location.
"I’m not gonna hit a low line-drive knuckleball. And I think that’s helped my field goals because it’s the same foot-to-ball contact. Good foot-to-ball contact on the field goal and just do the same thing on the kickoff rather than having two different swings. So that helped me the second half of the season and I’m sticking with that for training camp and this season.”
Butker is the fourth-highest paid kicker in the league. He owns the record for the longest made field goal in Super Bowl history with a 57-yard attempt made in Super Bowl LVIII.
With more confidence going into the regular season, Butker should be back to normal. He's made 88.3 percent of his field goals in his nine-year career.
For more on the Chiefs and the NFL, head to Newsweek Sports.
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