It took a trip to Lumen Field for the dynasty to look mortal again. After Harrison Butker’s 45-yard field goal veered wide right of the uprights in the fourth quarter – his second miss of the game – the Kansas City Chiefs were left with just 3 points on the board, no answer to the Seattle Seahawks’ mounting defense, and a whole lot of questions. Head coach Andy Reid offered his 31-year-old placekicker public grace at the podium following Sunday’s 20-3 blowout; general manager Brett Veach seems to have opted for an ultimatum instead.

Butker’s struggles aren’t recent. Since the start of the 2025 season, he’s missed 15 total kicks – 10 field goals and 5 extra points. With a front office desperate to mount a playoff return, Kansas City is pulling a lever no other franchise has been willing to touch so far.

Per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, the Chiefs are signing former Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker to their practice squad. It’s the first time Tucker has signed with a team since the Ravens waived him last year and since he served a 10-game suspension for violating the league’s Personal Conduct Policy.

Tucker, the 7x Pro Bowler and Super Bowl XLVII champ, was released by Baltimore after being accused of inappropriate behavior during massage sessions. Tucker adamantly denied the allegations, and no legal charges were ever filed, but the NFL still handed down the suspension last season. Since then, the 36-year-old has been effectively exiled from the league.

Once his suspension ended, Tucker worked out for the New Orleans Saints. Since that didn’t work out, he tried for the Indianapolis Colts next with the same dismal result. This offseason, he tried for both teams once again, and even flew in to potentially kick for the New York Jets ahead of this regular season, but left every facility without a deal. Now, with Butker’s inconsistency threatening a 5-1 start, Brett Veach has decided the potential media blowback is worth securing a historically elite leg.

Leaving points in Seattle
The breaking point for the front office arrived during Sunday’s blowout in Seattle. Harrison Butker finished the game just 1-for-3 on field goal attempts. While he managed to connect from 50 yards out, he missed from 58 and 45 yards, squandering momentum shifts and leaving the offense with nothing to show for two hard-fought drives.

The first miss killed a massive defensive swing right before halftime. Chiefs cornerback Nohl Williams intercepted Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold in the end zone, giving Kansas City a chance to score their first points just before halftime. Following a four-yard run from Kenneth Walker III, Andy Reid called a timeout with one second remaining. Butker trotted out for a 58-yard attempt, but the kick fell short, sending KC into the locker room trailing 10-0.

The second miss essentially ended the game in the fourth quarter. Patrick Mahomes moved the chains with his legs and connected with Travis Kelce and Noah Gray for 19 yards a piece to push the offense down. An incompletion, a 10-yard penalty, and four successful plays later, the Chiefs faced a 3rd & 3 from Seattle’s 27-yard line. But on that play, Seahawks defensive tackle Leonard Williams disrupted the pocket, forcing Mahomes into an incomplete pass intended for Cyrus Allen.

Rather than going for it on fourth down, Reid sent Butker out for a 45-yard field goal. He pushed the kick wide right, stranding the Chiefs in a 13-3 deficit with 8:38 left in regulation. The Chiefs did get the ball again one last time, but three incompletions and a 3-yard pass snuffed out any hope they might have had of creating a miracle.

Following the loss, Coach Reid kept the public critique of his kicker brief.

“He’s been one of the most consistent kickers in football. He’s off a bit, so got to fix it,” he said.

But then came Justin Tucker, bringing historical certainty. He owns an 89.1% career field goal rate – the second-best mark in NFL history – and his 417 made field goals rank 14th all-time. While his recent layoff comes with questions, his resume includes a career-best 97.4% conversion rate in 2016 and a league-leading 94.6% in 2021. For a 5-1 team watching their own kicker drop nearly 20 points below his norm, Tucker now looks like the ultimate insurance policy.

A deeper look at the numbers shows that this isn’t just a brief slump.
Back in 2023, Harrison Butker was nearly automatic, converting 94.3% of his field goal attempts (33-of-35). That efficiency dipped to 84% in 2024 (21-of-25), and sat at 86.8% in 2025 (33-of-38).

Through the first six games in 2026, he has bottomed out. Butker is currently sitting at just a 68.8% conversion rate, making just 11-of-16 attempts. The regression is strictly tied to his deep leg, as he remains highly efficient inside of 50 yards, converting 90% of those kicks in 2026.

However, anything from 50-plus yards has become a coin flip or worse. He converted just 2-of-5 from that range in 2024, 5-of-8 in 2025, and has hit just 2-of-6 from deep this season.

Did the kickoff rule break Butler?
Ahead of the 2026 season, Butker admitted that trying to adapt to the NFL’s 2024 dynamic kickoff rules fundamentally ruined his natural field goal swing.

“Field goals matter the most,” said Harrison Butker. “Trying to hit those knuckleballs and the funny kickoffs maybe affected the field goals a little bit. I think halfway through the season last year I said, forget the kickoffs — not forget the kickoffs — but I’m just gonna hit a high hang time ball, good location, just focus on the location.

“I’m not gonna hit a low line-drive knuckleball. And I think that’s helped my field goals because it’s the same foot-to-ball contact. Good foot-to-ball contact on the field goal and just do the same thing on the kickoff rather than having two different swings. So that helped me the second half of the season, and I’m sticking with that for training camp and this season.”

Despite his attempts to correct the mechanical damage, the recent tape in Seattle proves the issue is far from resolved. The Chiefs are still holding a 5-1 record, and their path to the postseason is intact, but the front office has seen enough of the kicking inconsistencies.

By signing Justin Tucker to the practice squad, Kansas City has made it clear that they will not let kicking woes derail a playoff run. With a Week 8 rematch against the Denver Broncos looming, Harrison Butker could very well be kicking for his job now.