Will Reichard’s right leg kept Minnesota afloat again Sunday, and in the process he put his name in Vikings history.
The Vikings beat the Indianapolis Colts 16-10, leaning on Reichard’s three field goals to help offset an uneven day from the offense. His second-quarter kick from 47 yards did more than add points - it gave him his 36th straight made field goal and moved him past Gary Anderson for the longest streak in franchise history.
That run ended later in the game when Colts defensive lineman Grover Stewart blocked a third-quarter attempt, but the milestone had already been banked. Since arriving in Minnesota as a sixth-round pick in 2024, Reichard has steadily turned a once-fragile spot into a reliable strength.
The comparison to Daniel Carlson came up early, and for good reason. Minnesota’s history at kicker has been rocky enough that every new leg brings baggage.
Reichard has gone about erasing it piece by piece. He made 24 of 30 field goals as a rookie, with all six misses coming after he was sidelined by a quad injury.
Last season, he connected on 33 of 35, and one of those misses came when his kick struck a camera wire during a Week 5 win over the Cleveland Browns in London.
His only miss before Sunday came in a Week 8 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, but even after that he finished the 2025 season 33-for-35 and ranked second in NFL history in field goal percentage, trailing Los Angeles Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker at 92.6 percent.
Anderson’s place in Vikings lore comes with a complicated shadow. His 1998 season was one of the great kicking years in team history and one of the best in league history, as he made all 35 of his field goal attempts and all 59 extra points.
The Vikings scored 556 points that season, and Anderson accounted for 164 of them. But that year is also remembered for the missed kick with 2:07 left in the NFC Championship Game, a miss that would have put Minnesota up by 10 and all but sent the team to the Super Bowl.
Atlanta tied the game on the next drive and eventually won in overtime.
Reichard’s story is still being written, but the early chapters are strong. He’s become one of the Vikings’ most dependable players, a calming presence for fans who know the kick is probably going in when he steps up. That matters even more for this team, which needed every bit of his security on a day when Minnesota managed only 275 total yards and still came away with a win.
The larger picture is simple: the Vikings are getting by on defense and special teams, and Reichard is a major reason why. If he keeps this up, the pressure around him may shift from whether he’ll make the kick to what Minnesota can do with an advantage that’s starting to look very real.
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