By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — Rarely do comments from the special teams coordinator take you aback but during minicamp this year, Minnesota Vikings special teams coordinator Matt Daniels said something that was hard to believe.
He said that Will Reichard was trying to fix something about his kicking. Apparently Reichard’s ball had a “baby fade,” meaning that it would drift a little bit from left to right. He was trying to straighten it out.
“I think for him it’s more of a target line standpoint, where it’s like I don’t want to have to play so much a little inside the right upright,” Daniels explained. “I want to just play it straight and through right down the middle.”
Every player in the NFL is working to improve something in the offseason but Reichard is toying with perfection. Last year he made 33 of 35 field goals and all 31 extra points. Me, you and Al Michaels are all convinced that one of those misses hit a TV wire, so call it 98.4% of his total kicks in 2025.
The percentage doesn’t even tell the entire story. Reichard made 11 of 13 (12 if you don’t count the wire) from beyond 50 yards and delivered a 59-yard field goal at Soldier Field in Chicago and 59-yarder on a gloomy day at Lambeau Field.
When you consider degree of difficulty, it has a good case for the greatest kicking season in NFL history.
So why is he trying to improve his ball flight?
“The good ones want to be left alone and the great ones want to be coached,” Daniels said.
That’s a bar, as the youth would say.
Reichard told Purple Insider that it’s always been his process to evaluate everything after the season. He takes 8-10 weeks off after the season to let his body heal and then when he returns to booting footballs he’s always rusty, which allows him to find areas where he might not have been as efficient as humanly possible.
“Thinking back to last year, to me, it almost doesn’t exist anymore,” Reichard said. “It’s there from a confidence perspective, knowing that I can do it at a super high level, but what I did last year isn’t gonna dictate how well I kick this year. So continuing to try to get better. I think if you’re if you’re not trying to get better, then you’re going to get left in the dust.”
Reichard’s confidence has been building since he was in grade school. He started attending kicking camps as a youth and it was clear that he had natural talent.
Jamie Kohl, director of Kohl’s Professional Football Kicking Camps, remembers the first time he saw Reichard.
“I remember leading college camps and seeing him as a sixth grader and I’m like, ‘who is this kid?’” Kohl told Purple Insider over the phone this week.
Kohl observed Reichard’s close relationship with his dad, Gary, who put in “some serious hours” to help the young kicker maximize his talent.
“His dad was hugely influential when he was young,” Kohl said.
Reichard said that the confidence that he has now started then when his dad encouraged him.
“From a young age, my dad really told me how good I could be,” Reichard said. “So he pushed me a lot, which is very helpful. Some days I didn’t appreciate it, but definitely appreciate it more now. That kind of instilled that no matter what I was doing, I was gonna try to be the best I could be.”
Reichard’s dad passed away from cancer when he was in ninth grade.
“That matures you pretty fast,” Kohl said.
Maturity and awareness have been as much of Reichard’s success as the natural talent that moved him up to the top of Kohl’s list of kickers as a youth.
When he was in high school, he was behind an eventual D-I kicker, so Reichard had to wait his turn and didn’t get a chance to be the starter until he was a senior. After proving he belonged at the D-I level, he decided to attend Alabama, which was considered the most pressure-cooker college for kickers in the nation because of their outrageously high expectations under Nick Saban and they had a history of kickers flubbing big games.
“If you’re going to pick a college coach to harden you and be demanding, Nick Saban would be universally on the top-five list,” Kohl said. “Saban grew to love Will.”
After going 22-for-26 in 2022, it was clear that Reichard was an NFL talent and there was a good chance he could be selected in the draft. However, he felt that he wasn’t quite ready and wanted to take as much time in college to improve before going to the pros.
That year he made 88% of his kicks, including a clutch field goal against Michigan in the college football playoff from 52 yards out.
“He took the more mature route, the more long-game route, the more wise route,” Kohl said. “It shows you how he’s in it for the long game and I sit back and admire that.”
After being taken in the sixth round by Minnesota, Reichard’s impact on the Vikings was immediate. He went 14-of-14 to start his career and 20-for-20 on extra points. He suffered an injury that derailed his rookie season and he wasn’t as sharp when he returned but the first seven games were proof of concept that his process was working.
“I thought I kicked really, really well at the beginning of the season,” Reichard said. “I kind of felt like the injury that I had that had me out for four weeks, I kinda lost some of that. Not being able to kick for a month isn’t easy…But I knew, like, the first eight weeks of the season, it worked, I knew I could do it. So last year was more just confirming what I did the year before at the beginning.”
It might not be shocking that Reichard is focused and process oriented considering his success but there’s something most people don’t see about his personality that is also a driving force: His competitiveness.
Reichard has an understated personality when he’s in front of the cameras. He doesn’t talk very loudly and his celebration after making kicks is a simple point to the sky. Behind the scenes, he takes it personal.
“We’ll play cards together or we’ll play H-O-R-S-E in basketball and it’s funny because nothing is on the line but everything is on the line,” long snapper Andrew DePaola said. “Will doesn’t want me or Johnny [Hekker] or Brett [Thorson] to have that little moment over him. That’s always been great too…that’s just Will’s nature. He’s a competitive guy, he wants to win no matter what it is.”
Reichard said that it “depends on the day” in terms of who’s better at H-O-R-S-E. There may be some dispute in the room over that.
“We play spades, super competitive in that, I’m always trying to win,” Reichard said. “[DePaola] knows that.”
The fire within Reichard is part of what’s pushing him to try to take his game to another level even if he’s on top. Last year DePaola said that when the Vikings went to play the Dallas Cowboys, their unit was talking about wanting to show everyone that Reichard was the best kicker in the league as they faced off with top-notch Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey. That night he went 2-for-2 with a 53-yarder and four extra points.
So this year, look for his ball to be a little straighter. In preseason, he’s already drained two from 50-plus. And no matter how many go through, Reichard is always going to be looking for perfection.
“I don’t think I’m a complete product by any means,” he said. “I feel like I can do this for a long time, so I’m always trying to find ways to get better or whatever that looks like.”