Why the NFL is buzzing about the new ‘K-ball’ rules

It seemed Vic Fangio was eager for someone to catch on.

“You know what you guys have missed?” said the Philadelphia Eagles’ veteran defensive coordinator — somewhat conspiratorially — in his press conference this week. “These kicking balls that they changed this year have drastically changed the kicking game, field goals in particular.”

Fangio was referring to an unheralded rule change made by the NFL this offseason that allows kickers, punters and long snappers to keep footballs with them throughout the practice week, and use those they prefer in the game.

Previously, game officials presented new footballs to special teams units 30 minutes to an hour before kickoff and ball boys frantically went to work on the leather to make the football friendlier to kick and grip for the specialists.

“It’s drastically changed the game, the kicking game and the field goal,” said Fangio, who compared the rule change to evolving baseball eras and suggested an asterisk be applied to certain kicks. “Guys have longer range than they used to.”

Chase McLaughlin drills a 65-YARD FG at the end of the half 💥

PHIvsTB on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXnxV pic.twitter.com/jP3GPQKJOO

— NFL (@NFL) September 28, 2025

Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Chase McLaughlin had hit a 65-yard field goal in a Week 4 loss to the Eagles a few days before Fangio’s comments. It was the longest in franchise history — and the longest in NFL regular-season history for an outdoors kick. In the Jaguars’ preseason opener in August, kicker Cam Little hit a 70-yard field goal. Seeing kickers attempt and make field goals of 50 yards and up has become a regular occurrence over the last several seasons. Since 2020, attempts of 50-plus yards between Weeks 1-4 have generally increased each year. There has actually been a slight dip this season — though Weeks 1 and 2 each included five made kicks of 55 yards or longer, tied for the second-most at that distance in a week since 2000.

Specialists and their coaches around the league who spoke with The Athletic this week said there are multiple factors at play for longer kicks: Kickers are bigger and their legs are stronger, they are more specialized in their field, and coaches and players are more confident attempting long kicks after seeing other long kicks get made.

But the rule change matters, too.

“I am just watching the league and I’m watching the numbers, I know it’s helping,” said Carolina Panthers long snapper J.J. Jansen, a 17-year NFL veteran. “At the same time, all of these kickers are getting so strong that to say ‘now we’re making long field goals only because of the football’ would be silly. I think it’s having some effect on how far you can kick a ball.”

Before the start of the season, the NFL sent each team 60 footballs with a “K” stamp (“K-balls”) in the summer, from which they can choose three balls to use for as many as three games each.

Time-sensitive work that used to be done by ball boys for specialists right before games now unfolds throughout the week.

“You’re trying to break down the seams and you’re trying to round the ball out and then you’re also trying to make it a little bit more tactile cause it comes out kind of slippery right out of the box. … You’re supposed to only be able to use this brush that Wilson makes,” said Detroit Lions special teams coordinator Dave Fipp. “It’s a hard brush and you can use the brush. Now they say you could use any part of the brush, so you could use the backside of the wooden brush. So those guys would take the backside of the brush on the seams, they would take the bristle side of the brush and smooth the ball out and then obviously you see those kickers push the tip of the ball into the tee before they kick off throughout the course of the game … they’re also trying to flatten it out or round the thing out. And the rounder and smoother you can get it and the more grippy you can get it, the better for really all three of those guys — snapper, punter, kicker.”

The idea is not only to break in the leather but to make the kicker’s foot as familiar with the football as possible. Specialists will now snap and kick the balls they want to use in that week’s game generally between 75 and 100 times, instead of only getting a few kicks with a “cold” ball during pre-game warmups.

“Think about like a baseball player and their glove,” said Jansen. “Those guys get to use their glove on a daily basis. They form it up exactly the way they like. They can use their glove on their hand, it becomes kind of part of their hand. The same thing with a good football and (a kicker’s) foot, it kind of conforms to the foot well.”

The rule change, Jansen said, gives the specialists the same amount of control over and familiarity with the footballs they decide to use as every other position already had. In 1999, the NFL moved to mandate use of unopened K-balls as a reaction to some of the treatments equipment managers and specialists were using to manipulate their footballs.

“We would take the balls and go into the racquetball court with a baseball bat. One guy would toss the ball up in the air and whack, you’d hit it with the bat and you’d just beat them up with the baseball bat,” said Steve Hoffman, who coached kicking for the Dallas Cowboys from 1989-2004. “Then we would wet them down and put them in the clothes dryer with some damp towels. Then we’d take them out and let them dry and then we’d go back in the janitor’s closet and get those big spinning disc things the janitors used to polish the floors and turn those upside down. … We would polish them up to make them look like they weren’t too beat up.”

They did this with every game ball, said Hoffman, who explained that quarterback Troy Aikman then got to pick the footballs he liked and the kickers would choose from the rest. After 1999, only officials could touch the K-balls and they essentially were placed on the kicking tee right out of their packaging (kickers hated this). The rules for K-balls were tweaked again in 2008 and 2020 to eventually allow equipment managers to work on the balls before games. It still gave specialists less control over their footballs than they would have liked.

“The challenge that all of these kickers beforehand were having was that we had no say on (which balls were used),” said Jansen. “In some cases the ball guys were just like, ‘the balls are just bad. They’re not breaking in. I did the very best I could (and) I couldn’t break it in.’ Just a bad football, and we (only) got the three the league gave us. … Everyone that is handling a K-ball now at least has had the opportunity to use K-balls (that have been) broken in. It’s just better for everybody.”

Quarterbacks also get their footballs throughout the week (and have for almost two decades). The same general rules for approved footballs apply for specialists and quarterbacks: The shape of the ball can’t be changed from what the NFL rulebook calls a “prolate spheroid” and the ball must measure and weigh to specific standards. Yet quarterbacks have long worked their footballs into their exact preferences (some notoriously so). A quarterback knows the minute differences between his chosen game balls and any new one. So does a specialist.

Cam Little celebrates with Travis Hunter and other teammates after hitting a 70-yard field goal during the preseason. (Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)

“If I showed you a K-ball and I showed you a quarterback ball, they both look like NFL footballs,” Jansen said, “but if I pointed out, like, ‘Oh, this one is built to be thrown like a vortex and this one is designed to be kicked like a soccer ball,’ you’d be like ‘Oh, I see that. They kind of look a little different.’ But it’s not a different football.”

On game days, 12 primary footballs, 12 backups and the three K-balls are inspected by officials before the game, according to the NFL rulebook. If a ball is deemed to be in violation of the league’s parameters (if it’s too obviously a different shape or weight, wet, etc.), it is discarded and the team is subject to typical penalties such as fines, as Pro Football Talk reported.

Any chosen football must be retired after a maximum of three games. The balls are marked with a sticker by officials to note how many times they have been used. If the sticker is removed or accidentally falls off, that ball can no longer be used.

The Panthers recently had to let go of one of their preferred K-balls before the three-game maximum for that reason — the sticker came off.

“We can’t put that ball in the game, so we were all very sad about that,” said Jansen somberly. “… We lost a good ball today.”

So far, early data from the 2025 season doesn’t support Fangio’s theory that the game has changed. His prediction about Dallas kicker Brandon Aubrey, though, may have legs. Just ask Aubrey.

Aubrey “is gonna hit a 70-plus yarder this year,” Fangio said. “You can just book it.”

“Sure,” Aubrey responded, “I can’t tell you if I’m gonna get that opportunity. But if I do, I’m gonna make it.”

— The Athletic’s Zach Berman, Nicki Jhabvala, Josh Kendall, Jon Machota and Mike Sando contributed to this report.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic)