Jake Bates’ first miss of the season came down to something easy to overlook in real time: Jack Fox’s hand.
That’s the explanation Lions special teams coordinator Dave Fipp gave on Thursday after Bates finally had a kick go awry in Week 8 against the Minnesota Vikings. Bates had been perfect through Detroit’s first six games, drilling all 10 of his field goal tries, including all five from 40 yards and beyond, while also going 22-for-22 on extra points. Against Minnesota, he stayed sharp on his lone PAT and added field goals from 25 and 37 yards before a 46-yarder in the third quarter struck the left upright.
The miss didn’t end up hurting Detroit in a four-point win, and Fipp said the kick itself was solid.
“Ultimately the ball ended up kind of hitting Fox’s down hand. So, his hand was a little bit in the way on the thing,” Fipp said.
“So, he really hit a good ball. It didn’t look like that obviously to us and hitting the upright, but that was really the cause of it.”
A closer look, including video posted by Jeremy Reisman of Pride of Detroit, suggested Bates may have actually kicked Fox’s right hand. Fox reacted immediately after contact, a tiny detail that changed the flight just enough to send the ball off the upright.
It was the kind of small operational mistake that can flip a kick from routine to missed in an instant. In this case, it was subtle enough to be missed live, and harmless enough in the final score that it didn’t linger. The issue, as the Lions surely treated it in practice this week, should already be cleaned up.
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