Interview with Connor Barth
Posted 3/19 by Michael Herman, Exclusive to Footballguys.com
After setting several school records during his college career at the University of North Carolina, Connor Barth was signed as an undrafted rookie free agent by Kansas City in 2008. Although he narrowly lost out on the starting job at the end of preseason, he was resigned part way during the regular season. As the Chiefs' starting kicker for the last ten weeks of the year, he went 10 of 12 on field goals and was perfect on 24 PATs.
I had the opportunity to speak with him early in the 2009 offseason and discuss some of the details of kicking in the NFL and kicking in general.
Footballguys.com: Regarding the fundamentals of a kick: from set-up through the snap, the hold, and the actual kick, could you describe the whole sequence of a typical kick?
Connor Barth: When we get onto the field, our snapper is the guy who spots the ball. My holder's job is to go and find the spot for me, so he counts off eight yards, because in the NFL from the snap to the hold is eight yards. When you see where the ball is snapped from that is not the actual yard line. The field goal is actually [measured] from where the ball is held. After my holder spots off the eight yards for me, I go up to the spot where he is, then I take my steps. I take three steps back and two steps over. That's kind of the normal routine that most kickers do in the NFL. Some other guys are a little bit different. Everyone has their own kind of fundamentals that they like to do. What the special teams coaches are looking for is about 1.3 seconds from snap to kick. So from when my center snaps it and the holder gets it down and then I kick it, it should be about 1.3 seconds. The line is only supposed to block for so long, and that's about the average time you want to get the ball off in the NFL game. We practice it so much during the week, that when we go out there it's just like clockwork. For me, all I really worry about is the kick. The holder will check the clock and make sure there's time on the clock. Our snapper will yell out where he is on the field so my holder knows where to set up the eight yards. It's a good process. When I get back there I just try to let it fire.
FBG: The next couple questions are about different weather conditions. Are there any adjustments you make when kicking in the rain?
Barth: Yes, when it's raining out, although the only game it really rained at was our preseason game against Arizona, our head coach (Coach Edwards last year) would come up to me before the game and during the game and ask me where I feel comfortable from. When you go out on the field the conditions completely change and the fields a lot softer, especially on grass. If you look at other teams, a lot of places like New England or Cincinnati where there's FieldTurf, it doesn't really matter as much because the footing is pretty much the same. But when you get on grass, like Kansas City, it gets a lot softer and it starts getting muddy. You really gotta worry about your cleats and stuff. The main thing I do if it gets wet out is I really try to be conscious of my steps, try to be a little bit lighter on my feet. When I plant my foot right before I kick it I don't want to be quite as heavy on it. I want to be lighter on it so that way I don't slide through the grass as much. That in turn kind of takes a little bit from your distance. The main thing is that we as a kicker try to relay to our special teams coach and then the head coach what we think our distance is now. Because when we go out in the rain and it's a little bit soggier on the field we have to make sure our footing is okay. For the most part we have good enough cleats to where it shouldn't affect us too much, but if there's a really heavy rain you really gotta be careful about slipping, so you gotta be a little lighter on your feet.
FBG: What about if it's very windy during a game?
Barth: Windy yea, that's Kansas City right there for you. I've experienced many games this year where it's been windy. With the wind it's the same thing. You get out there, especially in pregame, and really kind of test where that wind is at. For the most part when you get out in pregame warm-ups it's not going to change too much from then until the game time. For me it's just getting a bunch of repetitions before the game, throwing a lot of grass up, and seeing where it blows. Every stadium is different. The one thing I learned, especially in the San Diego game, is that for the most part winds blowing in Kansas City, no matter what end of the field you're on, you have to aim to the right upright. The wind blows in a different direction at both ends of the field. You just really gotta make sure to trust yourself. If the winds blowing from right to left I gotta make sure I put the ball to the right upright a little bit. Or if it's blowing from left to right I gotta make sure I aim to the left of the upright. It all depends on the wind speed too. If it's blowing 25 to 30 miles an hour, you have to be conscious of it. But I think anything under 15 miles an hour you really don't have to change too much, except maybe if you get outside of 50 yards. For the most part, unless you have a really gusty game, it's not going to affect you too much. With the Miami game at the end of the season and especially when it gets colder out, the ball doesn't quite travel as well through the air, that's when you really gotta make sure you are consistent with where you want to put the ball and where you're aiming.
FBG: The last weather question… I don't know if you encountered it yet or not at Kansas City or back in your days at North Carolina, what about kicking in bitter cold temperatures?
Barth: Well, the last two games at Kansas City were eight degrees and minus twenty with the wind chill. I've definitely kicked in a few of them. The main thing there is again really making sure you're on the same page with your special teams coach and your head coach about where you feel comfortable kicking from. If it's 60 or 70 degrees out, then 60 yards and in you're usually pretty good. But when you get into the colder situations, the ball's harder. Especially when it gets below freezing, the ball is just completely different. It impacts your foot; it [the ball] doesn't come off quite as well. What I did against San Diego and Miami, I went out in pregame and got back as far as I could and saw where I felt comfortable. Usually it was around 50 or 53 yards in that cold weather. In regular sunny conditions where it's 70 degrees I can probably hit 60 yarders. You really gotta make sure you test out the ball, because a ball in practice is not the same as the game ball. The game ball is going to be a little bit harder because they're newer. So you have to take that into to account too. When you get that ball you really have to test it out and see how you like it and see how it feels off your foot. In the end for the most part it's probably going to take maybe ten yards off your kick in freezing weather like that.
FBG: You mentioned the new game balls, the K-ball. What kind of adjustments did you have to make to that coming out of college and going into the pros?
Barth: It was definitely an adjustment at first. Kicking in college we used Nike balls and for the most part it was pretty broken in compared to what we kick in the NFL now. When I first started kicking the NFL ball I was struggling getting the ball to the five yard line on kickoffs. Barely kicking 50 yards. But it's all about finding the sweet spot on that new ball. It takes a couple months. But once I got into a rhythm towards the latter part of my workouts for the draft and then when I got to minicamp, I found out how to kick the NFL ball and where that new sweet spot was. For the most part it's kind of like kicking in college again, because once you find out where to hit the NFL ball, on what sweet spot, it goes pretty far, especially if you have the wind behind you. In the beginning it was kind of frustrating because I wasn't hitting the ball very far, but once I got used to it, it was an easy adjustment.
FBG: Back when you were talking about kicking in the rain you mentioned the difference between grass and FieldTurf. Are there any other differences between those surfaces, not necessarily when it's raining, but under regular conditions?
Barth: To my surprise, when I kicked in the ACC in North Carolina, for the most part all the fields in the ACC were pretty nice. Only one field I think, Wake Forest, was FieldTurf when I played in college. Mostly I kicked all on grass surfaces. And I love kicking off grass, because in North Carolina and South Carolina the ground has a lot of time to grow, they're just a lot of fun, and the weather is usually pretty mild. Now that I kick in the NFL, the stadiums are only nice for about the first three games or four games. Then they start getting torn up because of the weather and stuff. I love kicking off FieldTurf now. I wish that Kansas City would go to it just because it's a flat surface; there are no bumps. It doesn't matter how much you play on it, it always stays the same. The big adjustment with the grass in the NFL now is... I don't know what it is, perhaps there's more play on it, I guess maybe because the hashes are closer together in the NFL, it gets torn up more. It's a lot harder to find good spots on the NFL fields I feel. Kicking on FieldTurf, like when I got to kick in Cincinnati and places like that, it was so easy because every spot on the field was nice. It was all flat and there were no disruptions from when people were running around on it. I'm a grass guy, I like kicking off grass because I feel more comfortable. But now that I've kicked on more and more FieldTurf fields now that I've been in the NFL, I'm kind of leaning towards the FieldTurf just because it's more of a flat surface and you never have the bumps and divots that you get in grass fields.
FBG: Do you make any technique adjustments when attempting a long field goal, as compared to a medium or short range kick?
Barth: You don't try to, unless you're really hitting a bomb, like maybe outside of 60 yards. Maybe like a potential game winner or something before the half, then you might just try to really give it all you've got. When we've been taught to kick, it's always pretty much the same thing. You want to kick an extra point the same as you would kick a 50 yard field goal. You don't want to change up your stroke at all. You want to keep the same leg swing as you do when you're kicking a 30 yarder as you're kicking a 50 yarder. It's all about mental reps and continuing to have the same leg swing over and over again. That's why for kicking a football they try to use golf for a lot of the different situations. It's the same thing in golf; you want to have the same motion every time. With kicking you really don't want to try to get out of your rhythm unless you're kicking maybe a long 50 yard field goal into the wind. Then you might lower the trajectory and hit more of a line drive, but for the most part if you're kicking on a normal day, no wind, you just want to keep your stroke the same from that extra point all the way out to 50 yards. You never want to break out of your routine, because that's what got you there. You want to keep doing the same thing every time.
FBG: Are there any technique differences between placekicking and kickoffs?
Barth: Oh definitely. It's a big adjustment. That's where a lot of people don't understand the kicking game as much. There's a huge difference between kicking off and kicking field goals. Kicking field goals from a body and technique perspective, you want to stay more upright and not crunch as much. That's going to let your leg extend up and it's going to give you more height. When you kickoff, you want to almost do a hurdling motion and a crunching motion. You're pretty much trying to be as aggressive as you can when you hit the ball, but you don't want to be overly aggressive where you're out of control. It's almost like controlled aggression. That's what I call it when you attack that ball. You hit it really well, but you're under control and you know what you're doing and you have good technique. The main thing with kickoffs, when you make contact with the football you want to hurdle through it and land on your actual kicking foot. I'm right footed so when I kickoff, when I hit the ball I land on the same foot that I kick with. It's like a hurdling motion while I'm crunching. On a field goal you want to skip through the ball. When you plant your foot, you want to skip through that same foot. That keeps your momentum through the ball. If you don't skip through the ball when kicking a field goal, all your momentum goes into the ground and you lose the distance. You want to make sure you take all your body weight and get it through the ball. The main difference between kicking off and kicking field goals is when you hit the ball, when you make contact, on field goals you're kind of skipping through, but when you kickoff you're almost doing a crunch kind of like a hurdle.
FBG: You haven't been in the NFL too long so this may be a tougher one to answer, but are there any particular stadiums in the NFL that you've come across so far that are more challenging to kick in than others?
Barth: I've heard that New York, the Jets and the Giants stadium, is a tough place to kick, but luckily when I played there this year the wind wasn't too bad. I would probably say the worst stadium I've kicked in so far has been Kansas City's, just because the winds are so much different. From the goal line out to the 30 yard line out to midfield, there are all different winds and different patterns, so it's really hard to get used to it. So far my home field's actually one of the harder places I've kicked. Denver, we got lucky out there. I love kicking out there because it's a mile high, and it was 60 degrees out so it was nice. For the most part I haven't kicked in too many stadiums yet, but Kansas City has been the most difficult just because the winds are so different all the time. And that's been the big difference between college and the NFL. Kicking over here on the east coast [during college], I played in some windy games, but nothing like what it's like kicking in the Midwest.
FBG: Is there one thing about being a kicker that most people probably don't realize?
Barth: I would say the preparation. People feel like you can kind of just go out there and do it every week. People don't realize how much we practice, and how pinpoint our accuracy and everything has to be from the snap to the hold to the kick. People think that we can just go out there and every kick should be just automatic. But there's a ton of things that go into it from the line blocking to the snap and the hold and the kick. I'd say preparation is one thing that people don't understand how much we do for practicing the field goal. That's probably the big thing because I think a lot of people fell that we can just go out there and do it and that it's one of the easier jobs. But actually we prepare pretty hard to make those field goals on Sunday.