Field Goals Are Changing Things For Eagles' Vic Fangio

PHILADELPHIA - Denver week is here, and Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio played better defense than his top students while fending off questions about the team he ran from 2019 to 2021.

Fangio wasn’t in a talkative mood in general on Tuesday until the end of his weekly press conference, when the game’s best defensive coordinator wanted to get something off his chest.

“You know what you guys have missed?” Fangio asked. “Not just you but everybody is we gave up a 65-yard field goal [to Chase McLaughlin] and a 58-yard field goal.”

McLaughlin's suddenly monstrous leg caught the attention of Fangio in what ended up as a 31-25 Eagles win to move Philadelphia to 4-0 as one of only two remaining unbeaten teams.

Fangio compared the new kicking balls legislation in the NFL to the juiced ball era in one of the DC's passions outside of football, Major League Baseball.

“These kicking balls that they changed this year have drastically changed the kicking game, field goals in particular,” said Fangio. “So it's almost like they need an asterisk here. It was the live ball era or the asterisk for those home runs [Former MLB player Barry] Bonds, and [Former MLB player Sammy] Sosa, and [Former MLB player Mark] McGwire were hitting. The way they've changed the ball.

“The NFL, the kicking ball has drastically changed the field goals.”

In the past, officials would handle the kicking balls, and now individual teams have them in-house for the week.

“The kicking balls, and you can ask [Special Teams Coordinator Michael] Clay about it when he gets in here, but in years past, the officials would rub them down or other people would rub them down and you play with them,” Fangio said. “Now the balls are in house all week, and they kick those balls that they've had, and nobody else touches them.”

The result is that the length of many kickers has exploded.

Big Kicks

Sep 28, 2025; Tampa, Florida, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Chase McLaughlin (4) prepares to kick the ball during the first quarter against the Philadelphia Eagles at Raymond James Stadium. | Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images

"In terms of the kicking balls, yeah, the ball is traveling," Clay said while adding in the nice early-season weather. "It's still warm out. Shoot, it was 102 degrees feel on Sunday. Chase McLaughlin
is a really good kicker. He was able to connect on that end-of-half situation, and it's just the trend of the league right now."

That trend has Fangio re-thinking end-of-half and end-of-game strategy.

“The guy in Dallas [K Brandon Aubrey] is going to hit a 70-plus yarder this year,” Fangio said. “You can just book it.

“... I mean who thought [the Bucs] would hit a 65-yarder the other day? So it's drastically changed the game, the kicking game, and the field goal. Guys have longer range than they used to. Kind of like [Former MLB Player] Brady Anderson with the Orioles, and he went from 15 homers to 50 in one year.”

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