Greatest Kicking Day Ever?

On October twenty first, two thousand and seven, in a game where the Tennessee Titans traveled down to face off against the Houston Texans. The unsung hero of the football team, the kicker for Tennessee, Rob Baronas, hits eight field goals during the game, helping lead his team to victory and setting the record for the most field goals ever in a game. Today, we're going to dive into how Rob was able to do this and how he made it to this point on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Rees, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. And a day's trivia question to listen out for is what NFL team first signed Rob Baronas. Now, if you played fantasy for ball in the mid two thousands, then you probably know who Rob Baronas is, as his name was commonly used for fantasy football names as his last name Baronas sounded like my Sharona and punny names in fantasy football is all the rage. But it took Rob a long time to make it to the NFL, and it was a dream of his that he did one day achieve, and actually most NFL kickers have a long, tiresome journey to make it to the field and a challenge to keep it, as kickers in football are one of the most scrutinized players on the team and the easiest to love when they make their field goals and hate when they miss. So. Rob grew up in Kentucky, just outside Louisville, and he was actually a four time letter winner in soccer and actually letter twice in football in swimming as well as lettering one year in track, and he graduated in nineteen ninety six, where he didn't get any scholarship offers, but he walked on to Auburn's football team in nineteen ninety seven, where he played there until nineteen ninety nine, and he ended up being a semi firealist for the lou Garza Award in nineteen ninety eight for the best kicker in the nation after he made twelve of his sixteen field goals and two of them being from forty nine yards, and he also made all eighteen paight kicks and led the Auburn team in points with fifty four. So you would think you have this kicker, he's doing great. He's one of the best kickers in the nation, you're all set a kicker for the next year, but head coach Tommy Tupperville actually had some falling out with Rob, and even though Rob was an All SEC preseason kicker for the team, he decided to have their punter, Damien Duval, take over kicking duties, and in doing this, Rob didn't want to give up his chance to actually kick his final year, so he transferred to Georgia Southern so he could play his final year. Because at the time, if you transferred to another Division I school, you had to wait a year before you could play, but if you went down a level in NC DOUBLEA, you could play right away. So he went down to the FCS or at the time Division IE Double A to play for Georgia Southern, where his brother actually was on their soccer team, to finish out his final year of college eligibility, and it was a perfect time as he helped them win the national championship in the Division two way, finishing out his career on a high note. So after his college career was over, he started to try out for a few teams, and this is actually not uncommon even at small schools. I coached at a Division III school, and we even had a few teams come out to try some of our players out. In twenty twenty two, he would actually get signed by the Green Bay Packers as an undrafted free agent. Now, for kickers to get drafted, it's very uncommon. It'd be one of the better kickers in the country, but you also just have to have great skill. It's very hard to get drafted as kicker. Kickers have a hard life. Lots of kickers have to try out, try out, try out, and it is one of the few positions in the NFL that gets cut and picked up signed. Kickers bounce around more in the NFL now than ever because it's a difficult skill and it's pass or fail. As a position, you either went in or you didn't. You don't really have a great area. It's he made it or he missed it, and so it's very difficult. And so even though he got signed by the Packers and went through their training camp, he was released before the season started, which is not uncommon. Lots of teams signed at least two kickers for their preseason and then end up cutting one before the season, so there's competition for their kicker. Very common in the NFL. So what he does is he goes and joins the Arena Football League, which was a league that we will have to cover in the future, but it is a kind of a minor league football where it's done in the arenas done in basketball arenas. So the field is smaller and the goals are smaller, including the goalpost, as the NFL has the uprights eighteen feet six inch a part, so quite wide overall. But in the AFL or the Arena Football League they have, their dimensions of the field are shrunk a lot, and so are their field goals, and so the field goal for AFL are only nine feet apart, so it's very hard. So he signed with the Charleston Swamp Foxes and made twelve of twenty seven field goals during that season, not a very good rate if you were in the NFL with that larger space, but it's not bad for the AFL. And in the two thousand three offseasons, he got signed by Tampa Bay Buccaneers, got released again, went back to the AFL, did this again, got signed by the Steelers, got released again, went to the AFL. He kept doing this over and over, and he said if he didn't make it to the NFL an actual NFL season by the time he was twenty eight, he would give up. It was a good thing he did this. It gave him a goal, it gave him time to keep trying, and in two thousand and five he signed as an unrestricted free agent with the Tennessee Titans, where he actually made it through the whole preseason and was officially signed to the team. And that first season, he converted twenty three to twenty nine field goals for a seventy nine percent field goal rate, and made thirty of thirty two extra points. And at that time, the extra point was moved closer where they snapped the ball at the two yard line, and so it was a lot easier than it is now. But he used this to continue to gain more of his confidence, and in two thousand and six he actually hit a sixty yard field goal versus the Indianapolis Colts, which is tied for the eighth longest in NFL history. Now currently the record for the longest field goal is sixty six yards, done by Justin Tucker in twenty twenty one, but at the time when Rob hit this field goal, the record was sixty two yards, so he was just two yards shy of the all time record. In twenty seventeen, he was in a groove, and even in October he was named AFC Player of the Month, where he hit thirteen out of fourteen field goals, made all his extra points, and the Tennessee Titans went three to one that month. Now, one of the reasons he had such a great month was all happened on October twenty first, two thousand and seven, in a game versus the Houston Texans at Reliant Stadium in Houston. Now, this was just a divisional game between the Titans in Houston. They played each other two times a year, nothing unusual about it, a divisional rivalry. But Rob was going to do something very different. He was going to set a record. Coming into the game, Houston was three and three and the Titans were three and two, so very two, very evenly matched. So the game starts and Tennessee Titans had a pretty good offense for the day. Now, just because you hit field goals instead of getting touchdowns does not mean you have a bad offense. It means you were good enough to get close to kick a field goal. So they start out the first Roberona sits a fifty two yard field goal, so they take the lead, but the Texans come back and score a touchdown off a fumble, so the Texans have the lead, and Rob comes in to end the quarter as the Titans stall out close to the goal line and he kicks a twenty five yard field goal, and then starts the second quarter and they stall out again near the goal line and he kicks a twenty one yard field goal, giving them the lead nine to seven. Then the Titan drables score a rushing touchdown and Rob kicks a extra point. Then again Rob kicks a thirty yard field goal, and then as time expired into the half, he kicked a twenty eight yard field goal, so in the first half he had five field goals and an extra point, accounting for sixteen of the team's twenty two points in the first half, and they had the lead as they were winning twenty two to seven, a very dominant lead, and they came out in the second half again like they had been coming out as Rob hit a forty three yard field goal and then they scored another touchdown where Rob kicked an extra point, so at this point it was thirty two to seven. The Titans are rolling. It is almost a blowout, but the Texans do not give up as they go and score back to back touchdowns, and the Titans almost score again, but they failed to punch it into the end zone and Rob has to kick a twenty nine yard field goal and then the tight the Texans go and score two more back to back touchdowns, making it thirty six to thirty five. The Titans are now down and have to go on a final drive in order to even win the game. But luckily they know they only have to get into field goal range. As Rob had been on fire at the time. He had tied the record for the most field goals in the game with seven, and as they got in his range, he could get the record, and Vince Young led the Titans down a drive, getting them into field goal range as Rob hit a twenty nine yard field goal, setting the record as time expired and giving the Titans the win. So everyone was cheering for him at this moment. He was a star of the day, and it wasn't because he had to kick these long field goals. He kicked one field goal over forty five yards. All his field goals were closed. His offense was having a good day, they just couldn't finish it. And because he was consistent and made all his field goals, they were able to win the game. If he would have missed one, they would have lost. That's how it was. He was that good. That's why he was the AFC Player of the Month. And he would go on to finish the season, help leading the team to a ten and six record, making it to the playoffs and being named an All Pro and a Pro Bowler for the first time. And following that season, he would get a one point four million dollar contract for one year, and again he was successful that year too, and he got another contract in two thousand and nine, which was a four year deal worth twelve million dollars and had five million dollars guaranteed. He would had reached his dream that he decided not to give up on and it was now paying off. He would continue to kick for the team until twenty thirteen, when he retired after being released by the Tennessee Titans, which unfortunately but he had made enough money to retire on and enjoy life. He had gotten married to Rachel Bradshaw, who is the daughter of Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw and they got married in twenty fourteen, as he had just retired the year before. As he was retired married and then on September twentieth that same year, he would die in a car crash where he lost control of his car and swerved off the road, flipping several times and hitting several trees and ended up being pronounced dead at the hospital. And sadly this was due to him having a blood alcohol level almost three times over the legal limit, leaving behind his wife and his legacy in his life. A sad way to in otherwise great fought for life. And if you want to learn more about the Tennessee Titans, check out Tennessee Titans Weekly. We're hosts Lorenzo and Jacques takes you through all that's gone on with the Tennessee Titans that we helps you prepare for the games, what happened previously in the games, and what are they thinking? Great place if you're a fan or want to grow your knowledge, And if you enjoy today's episode, please like and subscribe wherever you are at so you do not miss a single episode and come back tomorrow for more daily sports history. And did you catch the answer to today's trivia question what NFL team first signed Rob baronas and that answer is the Green Bay Packers, even though he never played for them and only played in the NFL for the Tennessee Titans. PA tak F tap the t