Spencer Shrader had given the Colts almost nothing to worry about through the first six weeks of 2026. He hadn’t missed a field goal all season entering Week 7 against the Minnesota Vikings, was perfect on six tries from beyond 50 yards, and had already connected from 58 yards earlier in the year. Over his short career, he had missed only two kicks before Sunday - one long field goal attempt last year and an extra point in the first game of 2026.
That’s what made his two misses in the loss to Minnesota so striking. The bigger issue, though, may be what Shrader said afterward. According to the Indy Star’s Nathan Brown, the Colts kicker admitted that the first miss may have set up the second.
“I was kinda thrown off,” the former Notre Dame kicker said after the game.
That kind of honesty can read two ways: refreshing, or unsettling. In Shrader’s case, it may be a little of both.
For six weeks, he had been one of Indianapolis’ steadiest pieces. On a team that has had real trouble putting points on the board, his reliability stood out.
Before the Vikings game, he was in the mix for All-Pro and Pro Bowl recognition. If he gets back on track, he can climb right back into that conversation.
But kickers are a strange breed. A bad miss is one thing; the next one is where the damage starts.
That’s the line between a rough day and a real problem. It’s the same kind of mental grind golfers feel when the yips hit, or what happens when a catcher suddenly can’t throw the ball back cleanly.
Resilience matters.
The first miss came from 56 yards and would have put the Colts ahead by seven late in the third quarter. Instead, Minnesota turned the field position into a go-ahead touchdown.
The kick itself never looked clean. It came out as a knuckling line drive, stayed outside the left upright, and while it did start to drift back, it never came far enough.
The second miss carried more weight. Late in the fourth quarter, with Indianapolis trailing by three, Shrader lined up from 48 yards and seemed to strike it better.
But the ball started near the right upright and kept drifting that way. It’s not unusual for his longer kicks to have some late movement, but this one never came back.
It began off target and stayed there.
That leaves a few questions. Did the first miss get into his head?
Did he adjust something after pulling the earlier attempt left? Or was there a difference in how he set up the second kick?
During his strong stretch this season, Shrader’s kicks often started right and finished back left, but they were still inside the posts. These two were different.
Both began off line.
There’s also the chance this was physical. On the opening kickoff, the Vikings’ Myles Price broke through a hole on the left side of the Colts’ coverage and forced Shrader into a tackle attempt near midfield.
He missed on the tackle, which is normal enough for a kicker, but did help slow Price enough for the rest of the coverage unit to finish the play. Kickers get banged up on plays like that all the time, and Shrader was seen as fine afterward.
Still, his first field goal attempt was an ugly strike.
If there’s a physical reason, that may actually be the easier path, as long as it isn’t serious. Bodies heal.
Technique doubts can stick. And for kickers, that matters more than almost anything else.
They live in a world where one mistake can look obvious, and the next one can snowball fast.
Shrader said what he said. If it helps him reset and get back to the version of himself Indianapolis saw over the first six weeks, then it will have been the right kind of honesty. If the misses keep coming, though, those words will hang around.
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