Harrison Butker is Kansas City Chiefs’ safety net

In hindsight, it’s pretty crazy that Harrison Butker was being stashed on a practice squad during his rookie year with the Carolina Panthers. It’s even better that the Kansas City Chiefs managed to pick him up. If it wasn’t for an unfortunate injury to their own kicker, Cairo Santos, at the time, there’s a pretty good chance some other team would’ve gotten Butker. Who knows where the Chiefs’ kicking game would be at today.

Since 2017, Butker has pretty much been Mr. Reliable when it comes to the kicking game. According to Pro Football Reference, he has an absurd 90.1% field goal percentage. He’s never missed more than 4 field goals in an entire season, and he’s never missed a field goal from less than 30 yards.

The Kansas City Chiefs have one of the best kickers in the league with Harrison Butker—the safety net that some fans seem to overlook.

To say Butker has been reliable is truly an understatement. He’s been darn near automatic. It is kind of funny that he tends to take some heat from Chiefs Kingdom. It seems that even though he makes nearly every field goal, he’s only remembered for his missed extra points—which to be fair is kind of weird. You’d think a guy that can consistently make 40+ yard kicks wouldn’t struggle with XPs. Yet even his XP woes are greatly exaggerated. He only misses on average 3 XPs a year. Just last year he only missed two the entire season.

“Yeah but what about the playoffs?” What about them? Butker has only missed 3 XPs in his entire playoff career. It’s true that he’s also sporting an 83.3% FG percentage in the postseason, but that number is misleading; Harrison has only had to kick 18 FGs in his playoff career, and missed just 3 of them.

The truth is, the Chiefs don’t really need Harrison Butker. Patrick Mahomes and crew score so many touchdowns that a couple of missed XPs a season might make fans sweat every now and then, but they largely don’t matter. And when the Chiefs do need Butker? Like in the infamous 13-second game, the dude comes in clutch. Every Chiefs fan knows it.

Outside of maybe Justin Tucker, there isn’t a better kicker in the league and the Chiefs don’t even need him most of the time. Expect Butker to keep racking up points and serving as the Chiefs’ safety net this year. Maybe he’ll finally get the All-Pro selection that he deserves.