The preseason’s loudest moment in Kansas City came off Harrison Butker’s foot, and it came from way downtown.
Late in the second quarter Saturday night against the Buccaneers, Butker uncorked a 69-yard field goal just before halftime. It was the kind of kick that makes everybody in the building stop and stare.
The ball sailed cleanly over the crossbar, then kept going hard enough to slam into the net behind the posts. It looked like it might have had room from 75 yards or more.
It also came with a catch: it won’t count in the NFL record book. Preseason field goals don’t officially qualify, which means Cam Little’s 68-yarder from last season still stands as the longest kick in NFL history.
Butker only got the chance because Kansas City’s defense forced the issue. With under 10 seconds left in the second quarter, Tampa Bay faced fourth-and-5 from the Chiefs’ 49-yard line and went for it.
Jake Browning’s pass fell incomplete, giving Kansas City the ball with three seconds left. Andy Reid then sent out Butker, and the result was the 69-yard blast.
Butker finished with three made field goals against Tampa Bay, adding makes from 58 and 45 yards. He also missed from 43 yards in the fourth quarter of Kansas City’s 16-15 loss.
Even if the kick doesn’t live in the record book, it still belongs in rare company. The 69-yarder ties for the second-longest field goal ever made in an actual game. Since the first American football game in 1869, only three kicks of at least 69 yards have been made in a game: Cam Little’s 70-yarder for the Jaguars during the 2025 preseason, Butker’s 69-yarder on Saturday night, and Ove Johansson’s 69-yarder for Abilene Christian in 1976.
Johansson’s kick came on Oct. 16, 1976, at homecoming weekend against East Texas State, with a 17 MPH wind. College kickers were allowed to use a 1- to 2-inch kicking block until 1989, when it was banned, and the five longest field goals in college history all came while that block was legal. Butker and Little, by contrast, are doing it off the ground.
Little has already shown what one monster leg can lead to. His 70-yard preseason kick didn’t count either, but he later broke the NFL record with a 68-yarder last November, then added a 67-yarder in Week 18. That 67-yarder is the longest outdoor field goal in NFL history, while the 68-yarder came indoors in Las Vegas.
Butker’s career long in a regular-season game is 62 yards, so this wasn’t just a one-off rocket. It was a reminder that his leg can play in the same airspace as the biggest kicks in the sport. And with the way long field goals have been flying, a 70-yarder in a regular-season game feels closer than ever.
There’s also a reason these kicks are getting longer. The NFL’s new K-ball rule, introduced last season, gives each team 60 kicking footballs at the start of the year so they can break them in ahead of time.
Teams can use the balls in practice, and they’re also allowed to brush the ball to help smooth the bumps. A softer, more worked-in football flies better and is easier for kickers to strike cleanly.
Under the old rule, from 1999 through 2024, teams got three brand-new balls on game day and had about an hour to break them in. Darrin Simmons, the Bengals’ special teams coordinator, said the change matters.
"I believe it makes a big difference and I think that's why the distances on some of these long field goals went up and I think it will continue to just skyrocket as long as that rule stays in place the way it is," Simmons told CBS Sports and several other outlets in late July.
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