There’s a Reason the Greg Joseph FG Felt Weird but Good
Greg Joseph wasn’t supposed to drill a 53-yard, game-tying field goal last week at Cincinnati. Conversely, Vikings fans were supposed to toss remotes back on coffee tables, chiding a mistake-riddled effort by their favorite team.
But Joseph temporarily hit the pause button on lament after he indeed connected on the kick, sending the contest to overtime in Week 1. The remote tossing would occur some 15 minutes later when Dalvin Cook allegedly fumbled, thus sealing the game in Cincinnati’s favor. Joseph, if only for a sliver of time, saved the day with a rather unforeseen, cold-blooded field goal conversion.
Why wasn’t he supposed to make the kick? Well, two reasons. A) Vikings kickers ordinarily do not nail clutch field goals — especially when the events of the day were stinky to begin with. B) Up to that moment, field goals from 50+ yards were Joseph’s kryptonite, at least in a Vikings uniform. Throughout the summer at training camp and in preseason games, Joseph failed to consistently make kicks from 50 yards or longer.
Who cares about the summer? Joseph hammered the field goal through when it mattered. Nobody cares about the summer anymore.
If Joseph can hit that kick — in his first-ever Vikings field goal attempt — he has it in his body somewhere to do it again. Of course, he is not Justin Tucker or Jason Elam all of a sudden. But Vikings fans’ kicker standards are meager. They merely do not want their intestines ripped out late in a meaningful football game. This is akin to the sentiment regarding the offensive line over the last seven seasons. Just give folks offensive trenches that are average; we’re not asking for much here — is the common feeling.
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If you were flabbergasted he actually made the kick last Sunday, there’s good reason for it. It doesn’t usually happen.
To be sure, Kai Forbath hit a couple of long field goals in the 2017 NFC Divisional Playoff game — an underrated, totally game-saving feat — but the regular season is a different story. In the fourth quarter of regular season games, the last time a Vikings kicker did a similar bit of mastery via field-goal kicking was 2012. His name was Blair Walsh, and he tied the Week 1 game of 2012 versus the Jacksonville Jaguars in an astoundingly comparable fashion. Walsh’s kick tied the game as regulation expired, going through the uprights from 55 yards away. The only difference was Minnesota won the game in overtime — as they arguably should have last weekend. Interestingly, that was the first game of Walsh’s career, much like it was Joseph’s first game in Vikings attire.
Here’s the fact in a tweet:
In the regular season, Greg Joseph's game-tying FG last weekend was the Vikings first since 2012 that was 50+ yards in the 4th Quarter with the game score margin less than 7 points.
Blair Walsh did the same thing in 2012 vs. JAX.
In the playoffs, of course, there was Forbath.
— Dustin Baker (@DustBaker) September 18, 2021
Therefore, aside from Forbath’s heroism, you’re not trained to watch Vikings kickers hit these long-long kicks in clutch spots. That’s why it felt different and oh-so-extraordinary.
Other kickers — Dan Bailey, Forbath, and Walsh — hit 50+ yard kicks in the timeframe during the fourth quarter of not-close games. So, it’s not like Vikings kickers never connect on long field goals.
It was the clutch nature, plus the distance of the kick, that had not occurred in a regular season game since Adrian Peterson’s MVP season.
The lesson is also a broader one on Vikings game-watching. When something feels weird or rare, a deep dive into the numbers typically confirms it. For example, why does it always feel like Minnesota has no WR3 production (aside from K.J. Osborn against the Bengals)? Well, the Vikings utilize four-WR sets the least in the league, preferring two tight ends and such. Or — running the ball on 2nd-and-short. The Zimmer Vikings love to do that, and the numbers confirm it.
Joseph has a long way to go in solidifying the job for years to come. However, his introduction was marvelous, albeit in a losing effort. In a game riddled with 17 yellow flags on the field, a kicker smacking home a 53-yard field goal to tie the contest seemed unlikely. Joseph had other plans.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sally from Minneapolis. His Viking fandom dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ and The Doors (the band).