The Chiefs are giving Harrison Butker another chance Sunday against the Jets, and for now, that means Justin Tucker stays in the background.
Head coach Andy Reid confirmed Wednesday that Kansas City is sticking with Butker at kicker, even with the veteran’s recent issues hanging over the team. The numbers have been hard to ignore. Butker has hit 17 of 18 extra points, but he’s only 12 of 18 on field goals overall, a 66.7% mark that ranks 29th among 32 NFL kickers with at least seven attempts.
The long-range work has been even shakier. Butker has made just two of seven tries from 50 yards or more, good for 28.6%, which ranks 26th among 27 kickers with at least two attempts from that distance.
Since the start of the 2024 season, including the postseason, he’s 9 of 20 from 50 yards and beyond. From 2020-23, he was 25 of 32 from that range.
His latest miss from deep came in a spot Kansas City badly needed. After Butker had already connected on three extra points and a 45-yard field goal, he pushed a 54-yard attempt wide right in the fourth quarter against the Broncos.
A make would have stretched the Chiefs’ lead to six and bought them some breathing room. Instead, the miss left Kansas City up only three and handed Denver the ball at its own 44-yard line.
Two plays later, the Broncos were in the end zone with the game-winning touchdown.
Butker said after the game that he didn’t give the kick a chance. Reid later suggested Denver may have overloaded the left side of Kansas City’s field-goal protection, possibly affecting the attempt. Special teams coordinator Dave Toub offered a different read Thursday.
“No, he didn’t do it on purpose,” Toub said. “It’s just an instinctive thing.
He’s not looking at the rush before he kicks. He has no idea about the rush.
But it’s like you can kind of feel (it). You’re getting ready to hit it, and you feel it.
It could change something.
“That’s why we rush the field-goal block. That’s why we do what we do on field-goal block - to pressure kickers.
You’re not always going to get a block. Most of the time you don’t, but you try to pressure them to try to create that.
And we don’t know if that was it.
“Butker, well, he never said anything about the protection. He stood up there, and he was a man about it.
He said he didn’t hit it great. As soon as it came off his foot, he knew it.”
Toub also said he wasn’t rattled by the miss. Butker had already made four kicks in the game, and Toub pointed to that as proof the Chiefs still trust him.
“My confidence level was good because he made four kicks,” Toub said. “He nailed them - all four, the extra points and the field goal, and we had good confidence in him.
He makes these kicks. Harrison Butker makes a ball from the 36-yard line.
He makes that kick. So coach (Reid) made the call.
I was all in with it. Had he made it, we’d be sitting here going, ‘Hey, Butker’s back.’
“That’s a confidence thing. So he missed it.
He’s missed kicks this year, and we got an eye on it, and we’re working on it. We’re going keep coaching him, and that’s what we’re doing.”
The Chiefs’ kicker situation got more complicated last week when the team signed Justin Tucker to the practice squad, a move that came after Butker went 1-for-3 against the Seahawks on “Sunday Night Football” in Seattle. Tucker’s tryout was clean - he hit all 30 of his attempts - and Toub said having him around has helped Butker by giving him another veteran to talk through adjustments with during the week.
Still, Tucker’s arrival also gives Kansas City a fallback if Butker’s problems continue. That’s the reality now, even with Butker among the league’s five highest-paid kickers.
“Butker’s our kicker,” Toub said firmly. “He’s on our team, and we’re paying Butker, and Butker has won a lot of football games for us. Butker is a champion.
“He deserves the right to be exhausted on this thing, and we’re going to exhaust every possibility with him.”
The Chiefs host the Jets on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium as they try to snap a two-game losing streak.
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