At the risk of stating the obvious, Tom Brady is one of the greatest QBs the NFL has ever had. But you know, Brady might have started his career with zero rings instead of three if he didn’t have Adam Vinatieri. Without the legendary kicker, the Pats dynasty might have looked very different. Vinatieri flipped the entire script in Super Bowl XXXVI with 7 seconds left. And then he again entertained the NFL world with similar magic in 2004 during Super Bowl XXXVIII. That’s the wild thing about kickers, one swing of the leg can flip an entire game. But maybe these game-changing moments aren’t sitting well with Philadelphia Eagles‘ star Jason Kelce, who now wants to get rid of the kickers.

Turns out he’s not alone, Hall of Famer Tim Brown just backed him up, dropping his hot take on kickers. So what have the NFL legends got against the three-point snipers? Well, well… the former Bucs WR recently appeared on the Up & Adams show, where he was asked what change he would request from Commissioner Roger Goodell in the league.

Without thinking for a second, Tim said, “Get rid of kickers. We have no kicking in our league.” Ouch! But why? We all know that the 58-year-old Hall of Famer had skin in the game – well, part ownership anyway – back in his Arena League days. And, watching those games up close only cemented his opinion. 

“It slowed the game down,” Tim shared. You can practically see him waving the memory away as he added, “It just wasn’t… wasn’t what you want to see.” Last year, during an episode of the New Heights podcast, Eagles center Jason Kelce echoed a similar sentiment. The Philly star didn’t hold back, saying he’s sick of watching kickers nail 60-yarders “like it’s routine.”

Kelce’s had enough of these last-second heroes and made his stance clear: “We need to narrow these field goal posts. It’s too easy to kick field goals right now. We’ve got to go to rugby goal posts.” His argument? “Kickers should not be influencing football games as much as they are right now. We need to make kickers way less valuable. That is not what football is about.”

So, all in all, these legends feel kickers make the job easier for any team that is lagging behind 3 points in a game. Tim Brown, too, finds himself in the same boat as Kelce. He’s also an anti-kicker. But what if the kicking rule is removed?

Tim Brown has a rule change in mind

The Arena League is done with the traditional kickoffs and punts, thanks to Tim Brown. The nine-time Pro Bowler, who is the league’s commissioner and chairman, replaced the kickoffs with a throw-off. “So now we have a throw off… and it’s the best thing ever. Because they’re able to pinpoint, put the return guy in a tough position, and it’s working out great,” Brown told Adams in the same episode of the show.

The former Bucs WR expressed support for a similar change in the NFL but said, “I know that would never happen.” Adams then joked that Tim might be supporting this change to secure his record. Brown had 100 touchdown catches, tied for 3rd in NFL history at the time of his retirement in 2004. So, to Adam’s question, the Hall of Famer responded with a hearty laugh. “You can’t, you can’t go back on the field anymore. And so whatever you can do, throw it out there, maybe somebody will pick it up and, you know, we’ll go from there,” he said.

Football’s kicking game has come a long way since the 1920s, when your star halfback would just boot extra points between carries. The real revolution came in the 1960s, first with Pete Gogolak‘s soccer-style kicks, then the AFL’s skinnier goalposts forcing teams to take specialists seriously. Remember, the first ‘pure’ kicker, Jan Stenerud, wasn’t even drafted until 1966!

Anyway, now we’ve got laser-focused artists like Justin Tucker, who nails 60-yarders. However, some old-school guys like Kelce and Brown think maybe they’ve gotten too good at their jobs. Funny how the position everyone once ignored now decides championships!