The Kansas City Chiefs lost 20-10 Sunday night to the Houston Texans in a game that seemingly sealed their fate for any hopes of making the playoffs. It was a game that culminated everything wrong with this football team this year. While much of the discussion will revolve around the miscues of Andy Reid, Matt Nagy, and the offensive unit, there’s been an underlying issue for two seasons now with a kicker who has made countless big plays during this Chiefs dynasty.
Harrison Butker was drafted in 2017 by the Carolina Panthers, was quickly released, and picked up by the Chiefs. He impressed coaches quickly with his big leg and pinpoint accuracy, and was given the starting job over kicker Cairo Santos. The rest is basically history, as Butker became a top kicker in the league, who was nails throughout every Chiefs playoff run, hitting multiple game-winning kicks when the pressure mounted.
This prompted Kansas City to award Butker with a four-year, $25.6 million contract last offseason, making Butker the highest-paid kicker in the league on both an annual basis and over $6 million more in guarantees than any other kicker contract, according to Spotrac. At the time, the majority of Chiefs fans were fine with the large investment in Butker because how could you not be? The guy has been one of the clutchest kickers in league history.
Since the start of the 2024 season and carried over to this year, however, Butker has hit an average of 84.3% of field goals, a far cry from his usual 90-plus percent. This season alone, he has missed four PATs, marking a career worst 87.9%. It’s difficult to explain where exactly it all went wrong for Butker, as it’s no doubt a combination of a lapse in mental focus at times, a change in kicking style, and fear of injury after missing four games last season.
Nonetheless, Butker enters next year with the single-highest cap hit of any kicker at $7.3 million. And while some call for him to be cut, it would do the Chiefs more harm than good, as you’d be down a good kicker, which is hard to come by these days, and it’d cost more in dead cap money than it would to keep him.
The entire special teams unit has been a disaster for the Chiefs this season, and while Butker is a part of that, I tend to place more of the blame on special teams coordinator Dave Toub. He has continued to shrug off Butker’s struggles, but fails to help coach his most important player to perform at the highest level.
Harrison Butker, despite his fall from grace, will be the Chiefs' kicker next year, because his contract simply warrants it. It puts Kansas City in a very tough situation if Butker fails to return to his elite form and the kicking struggles persist a year from now.