Chiefs star Harrison Butker is always part of the conversation when talking about the league’s best kickers. However, even the best in the business have bad days, and Butker is trying to come out of a slump that has plagued him in the last two seasons. The veteran kicker cast a light on how the NFL’s kickoff rule changes played a part in it.

“Field goals matter the most,” Butker said. “Trying to hit those knuckleballs and the funny kickoffs maybe affected the field goals a little bit. I think halfway through the season last year I said, forget the kickoffs not forget the kickoffs, but I’m just gonna hit a high hang time ball, good location, just focus on the location. I’m not gonna hit a low line-drive knuckleball.

“I think that’s helped my field goals because it’s the same foot-to-ball contact. Good foot-to-ball contact on the field goal and just do the same thing on the kickoff rather than having two different swings. So that helped me the second half of the season, and I’m sticking with that for training camp and this season.”

The NFL rolled out a series of changes to kickoff rules in 2024, which have now been made permanent. Kickers can no longer purposely boot the ball out of bounds from the 50-yard line. That will change how kickers plan the right distance and trajectory for the kicks, which messed with Butker’s strategy last season. Instead of sending the ball deep to prevent returns, the Chiefs used to kick towards both sides of the field.

The change might have led to his field goal strategy suffering. Early in the 2025 season, Butker missed three field goals in the Chiefs’ first four games. He luckily recovered after that and finished with a total of five missed field goals. However, this was still the second straight season that Butker’s field goal (86.8%) and extra point (88.6%) percentages were lower than his averages.

This offseason, Butker has been locked in on what matters, especially after missing those kicks at the beginning of last season.

“Starting the season last year with the misses, and they were long misses, I feel like I was just so focused on hitting the big ball,” Butker said in June. “Especially when it’s like a 56-yarder, I’m trying to crush it when there’s no need to. If you just hit it smooth, it’ll still go over the crossbar.

“So for the rest of the season, I just didn’t really care about hitting a big ball, and I really haven’t focused on that during OTAs.”

In training camp, the Chiefs are trying to create a game-like simulation to help Butker and the place-kicking unit. Instead of just drilling balls separately, the kickers are getting reps in intervals of 15-20 minutes during practice. And so far, Butker has been making an impact.

Watch out for Harrison Butker during training camp practice

Fans will be in for a treat when Harrison Butker lines up on the field. He’s been nailing his goal attempts too, going 10/10 in training camp on August 5. He’s been putting in so much strength that his cleats are tearing up the ground. Head coach Andy Reid has reportedly reminded him that the ball is brown, not green.

Special teams coordinator Dave Toub also shared once during the mincamp that Butker hit three consecutive field goals one day. All of them went for over 60 yards.

“Those first couple of weeks after the season, I just focused a ton on flexibility and mobility,” Butker said in June. “So, when I showed up here, I felt like my body could move exactly how I wanted it to.”

Good old Harrison Butker seems to have gotten the rhythm back into his legs. Kansas City will need all they can make happen, as he has often been the difference-maker for the team’s championship runs.