Daniel Carlson: 'The Goal is Always Perfection'

There's a different kind of pressure placed on NFL kickers compared to other positions on the field.

Their success or failure on any given kick can make a difference in a game. To many fans, since kickers -- to the untrained eye -- have one task, it should be rather simple. But that's not the case.

When watching Las Vegas Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson, though, it might seem to be.

Raiders special teams coordinator Tom McMahon has been impressed with the All-Pro kicker's "consistency."

"It's perfection, that's the definition," McMahon said when he addressed the media after the Raiders' minicamp practice on Thursday. "People say, ‘Oh, consistency is boring.’ There's nothing boring about consistency. It's called perfection.”

Carlson was three field goals shy of perfection in his last two seasons, including his 2021 campaign, when he led the league in made field goals with 40.

For Carlson, those few missed kicks help fuel the 28-year-old kicker to want to get better and reach new heights.

“[T]here's always room for improvement," Carlson said in his post-practice press conference on Wednesday. "I missed kicks last year. There's room for improvement in a lot of different areas. Just like any other player, each day at practice, each day in the offseason, I'm trying to get better, and especially in the offseason, I get the chance to kick more because I don't have to be so fresh for a game coming up, or something.

"So I think this is a great time for me to push myself, get a lot of reps, whether it be with Jacob [Bobenmoyer] or just by myself, figuring out my muscle memory and my technique, and hopefully just continuing to improve on something I hopefully have been doing well the last few years. But like I said, the goal is always perfection. I might not ever get there, but that's always going to be the goal each season.”

Carlson made 34 37 field goal attempts last season, including six made from 50-plus yards out.

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