If anyone can break the curse….
It’s Will the Thrill 🔥👑💰
Few subjects build consensus in the Vikings locker room like Will Reichard.
— Alec Lewis (@alec_lewis) October 8, 2026
Harrison Smith marvels. Jordan Addison calls him a ninja.
This kicker is undoubtedly one of the MVPs of the team’s 4-0 start. He is who he is, and he is who he’s always been:https://t.co/TcedMnK2nt
EAGAN, Minn. — Jake Golday, one of the Minnesota Vikings’ rookie linebackers, listened closely. Really, he was eavesdropping. He wanted to know why, on a normal Thursday in late September, a reporter approached one of his teammates with the following question.
What goes through your mind when Will Reichard trots onto the field to attempt a kick?
Golday smirked and watched as edge rusher Dallas Turner mulled over an answer. Eventually, Turner looked over at Golday for help. All Golday could think to do was shrug and shoot his hands to the sky, mimicking the referee’s pose when the football soars through the uprights.
Few subjects build consensus in the Vikings locker room like Reichard’s excellence. His teammates talk about his production being as consistent as the sunrise. It is an expectation at this point, only acknowledged as wildly impressive when you step back and sift through the layers of how and why it’s happening.
Some Vikings players — and even coaches — treat his time on the field almost as an intermission. Why stress over a kick when the result feels preordained?
“I don’t even watch,” said Vikings receiver Jordan Addison. “Automatic 3 points.”
Lately, as bewildering as this may sound for Vikings fans, given the franchise’s kicking history, each Reichard kick feels like a certainty. He has made 31 straight field goals, the longest active streak in the NFL.
The stretch spans 350 days. The last time an NFL kicker was this accurate was in 2023, when the Dallas Cowboys’ Brandon Aubrey drilled 35 in a row.
Dominance like this, especially from a kicker, can seem somewhat trivial. But in this case, Reichard’s reliability rounds out a winning formula that’s largely responsible for the team’s 4-0 start.
You can only tailor your weekly strategy toward menacing defense and dependable special teams if there is an established sample of consistency for both. Everything about Reichard’s past and present removes the idea of variance. He is who he is. He is who he has always been.
“He’s the man,” veteran safety Harrison Smith said Sunday. “He’s stone-cold. That’s it. I don’t know what else to say about him. And he didn’t have to become that. He walked in the door like that.”
Reichard, according to teammates, carries himself with a tangible intensity. Desire lurks beneath. Once, during training camp in 2025, a former teammate tested his ambition with some chiding before a 50-yarder. Reichard buried the attempt, then locked eyes with that player before walking off the field and gestured in a way that said, Thank you for your doubts.
He approaches his craft almost like a vaunted pass rusher. But instead of studying an opposing tackle’s tendencies, Reichard concentrates on wind conditions and swing paths.
Nothing goes overlooked. Ask him about how he likes the equipment staff to prepare his kicking balls, and he’ll explain his priorities in depth. Chat with him about the importance of the angle at which the holder places the football, and you’ll learn that football being a game of inches applies to this phase of the game, too.
When Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell complimented Reichard on Wednesday for another NFC Special Teams Player of the Week honor, he used the word “mastery” to describe him.
Reichard has a personality and hobbies like golf and Alabama football. But doing his job comes first. He has a standard of excellence, a standard unaltered by stage or level and verified by those who know him well.
“The best way to explain it is that he’s a relentless competitor and perfectionist of technique,” said Jeff Banks, the special teams coordinator now at the University of Texas who recruited Reichard at Alabama. “A lot of times, kids have the leg talent, but they’re immature in other aspects. I was always enamored with the fact that it meant so much to him to be really good with technique.”
The Vikings scavenged for these tidbits in the months before the 2024 NFL Draft. They heard that Reichard’s Crimson Tide teammates, stars on offense and defense, considered him their equal. They listened to anecdotes about his presence on legendary coach Nick Saban’s player leadership council.
More than anything else, Vikings special teams coordinator Matt Daniels believed that the psychological profile of the kicker they coveted mattered. Reichard’s disdain for satisfaction checked one box. Just as important, his on-field experience contained plenty of pressure-packed moments.
Not only did Reichard attend Hoover (Ala.) High School, a football powerhouse featured in the MTV show “Two-A-Days” in 2006 and 2007. He also chose to attend Alabama — not because he had grown up a Tide fan, but because he understood what it would mean to overcome the school’s kicking curse.
For years, Saban’s star-studded teams contained an almost mystifying hole. They could not find a steady kicker.
In 2018, The Ringer captured the problem with a story headlined, “A Brief History of Alabama’s Kicking Woes, the Only Broken Part of Nick Saban’s Process.” That year, a Twitter user tallied the numbers, suggesting Alabama had left 270 points on the field due to kicking mistakes in the Saban era.
Reichard’s arrival in 2019 flipped the script. Over five seasons, he became the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer with 547 career points. During practices, Saban put pressure on the kicker by threatening the team with gasser sprints if he missed. It was, according to several former Alabama coaches, as if he was completely unbothered, detached from anything besides accomplishing the task at hand.
“Nothing rattles him,” said Ken Whisenhunt, whom Saban hired as a special assistant in 2023. “You look at him, and you think, ‘OK, nothing special.’ But this kid doesn’t miss. There’s just something about him.”
The Vikings bet on comparable impressions to the tune of a sixth-round pick. Now, in his third season, similar superlatives spill from the mouths of those who witness him every day.
“I’m by no means an expert on kickers,” edge rusher Bo Richter said, “but when you see the ball come off his foot from up close, there’s so much pop compared to others. You see other guys kick and it’s just not the same.”
“When he jogs out there, you’re thinking, ‘S—, I got to get ready for kickoff,’” safety and special-teamer Tavierre Thomas said.
“He’s like a ninja,” Addison said. “Silent killer.”
Listening to Addison say this one recent afternoon, second-year receiver Tai Felton nodded approvingly. With Reichard, there are no caveats worth applying, but instead small bursts of recognition. This is who he is. This is who the team expects him to be.
LIVE WELL ~ LOVE MUCH ~ LAUGH OFTEN
I dont like this... kickers are not supposed to get attention, they dont need distractions. just leave our kicker alone, pay him among the best in the game at his position, and let that be his reward for doing an excellent job. seems like every time somebody starts noting shit about kickers their heads get all messed up and they go to shit.
Why isn't Chuck Foreman in the Hall of Fame?
I'm with Jimmy on this one...
I still remember my neighbor’s wife (Diane) emitting the words "has he missed yet this year?" in 98
Hurry-up Vikings, we ain't getting any younger!
“Lately, as bewildering as this may sound for Vikings fans, given the franchise’s kicking history, each Reichard kick feels like a certainty. He has made 31 straight field goals, the longest active streak in the NFL. The stretch spans 350 days. The last time an NFL kicker was… https://t.co/qDzQGcSC6F
— SleeperVikings (@SleeperVikings) October 8, 2026
LIVE WELL ~ LOVE MUCH ~ LAUGH OFTEN
Free your mind. Past results are not indicative of future performance. We could not know our purple savior would arrive with such baby-faced swag. And so it is written:
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