The last time Adam NeVille, the president of the San Tan Youth Football League, saw Matt Prater in person was Tuesday night, on a football field in their southeastern Phoenix suburb.
Prater, one of the league’s volunteer assistant coaches, was helping out with his son’s team in the 9-to-11-year-old division and was uniquely qualified for the role. Through last season he had played in every NFL season since 2007 as a kicker, including the last four with the Arizona Cardinals, and even held the league’s record for most field goals over 50 yards.
But when NeVille and Prater saw one another last week at practice, there was a real question as to whether Prater would be playing a 19th season at all. The day before, all 32 of the league’s teams had finalized their 53-man active rosters, and Prater was still a free agent.
“He was playing center, running the offense for his son’s team,” NeVille said. “And next thing you know he’s telling me he’s got to take a new gig.”
That new gig came from the Buffalo Bills, a Super Bowl contender whose starting kicker had just injured himself. Prater was writing out a practice plan for his son’s team when he got word he would be signed by the Bills. After a red-eye flight from Arizona, the 41-year-old Prater landed in Buffalo, New York, before 7 a.m. Thursday. Talk about good first impressions at a new job: By 11 p.m. Sunday, he’d kicked the game-winning field goal to open the Bills’ season with a 41-40 victory over Baltimore that may stand as one of the season’s most improbable comebacks.
“He’s such a good dude. I’ve been texting him this morning because of obviously what happened last night,” NeVille said Monday. “He’s like, ‘This is crazy.’ I’m like, ‘This is a Disney story!’”
The season-opening game was billed as a showdown between juggernaut teams who will be in each other’s way all season while battling for the AFC championship. It lived up to the anticipation because of the performances of its marquee superstars such as Bills quarterback Josh Allen, the defending league Most Valuable Player and his Ravens counterpart Lamar Jackson. Baltimore’s lead grew to as much as 15 points early in the fourth quarter, only to see it reduced to just two with 86 seconds left, when Buffalo got the ball back.
On the sideline, Prater set up a ball onto a tee in front of a net and began warming up for a would-be game-winning kick. The Bills were placing their trust in a player with a career accuracy of just under 84% but was mistaken as a nonplayer when he joined the team only three days earlier.
“He walks into the special teams meeting and I thought, ‘We got a new coach,’” tight end Jackson Hawes told reporters of his reaction first seeing Prater, the second-oldest player on an active roster this season.
“Honestly, I met him in the locker room two days ago,” Allen said after the game. “He showed me a video of his son playing quarterback, that’s how we met. And today before the game, he comes up to me in the locker room before he even [took] the field. He just said, ‘Hey, I promise you I’m going to give you everything I got tonight.’”
Prater did as he promised, nailing the kick as time expired, to send Buffalo’s stadium into a pulsating cacophony of celebration.
“I’m still on cloud nine,” Prater said after the game.
Addressing Bills players in the locker room late Sunday night, Buffalo coach Sean McDermott threw an arm around Prater while giving him the game ball in front of cheering teammates.
“First of all, he’s almost as old as I am,” McDermott told players. “And his legs are smaller than mine, right. But we are so proud to have you on Buffalo, on that kick right there. Welcome to Buffalo.”
Prater said his pregame talk with Allen was “just something I wanted to tell him. ‘I know we don’t know each other that well yet but I just want to let you know, I know I just got here, and it may not be perfect right now, but I’m going to do everything I can to try to be perfect to help this team win while I’m here.’”
Prater isn’t the only person connected to the San Tan youth league in Queen Creek, Arizona, on an NFL roster this season. The league’s most famous alumnus is Brock Purdy, who before he inked a $265 million extension this summer as the San Francisco’ 49ers’ starting quarterback, learned the position while tossing the ball around in the league. A volunteer coach going on to play in the NFL was a new one, however, NeVille said.
When he hosted signups for the league season last month, as NFL training camps were well under way, NeVille said he checked in with Prater whether he’d heard interest from NFL teams. The kicker’s response, according to Neville: “We’ll see what happens.”
Prater said he’d worked out with a local snapper and holder during the offseason to stay as game-ready as possible despite his free-agency limbo. But otherwise he’d become, in his own words, a full-time dad whose routine included dropping off and picking up his kids from school, then taking them to gymnastics, dance and football practices.
“Matt is super down to earth,” NeVille said. “Kids probably don’t recognize the gravity of who this guy is.”
The Bills’ starting kicker, Tyler Bass, will miss at least four games after being placed on injured reserve after dealing with a hip/groin injury. Yet there is no guarantee yet that Prater, who started the team’s season with a bang, will still be needed during a potentially deep postseason run. But for the time being, one youth football team in Arizona is down an assistant.
“I kind of passed off those duties,” Prater said.
Source link
