That is an extremely unintelligent statement. First, he is 182 pounds. It's not like these kickers are scrawny little men either (compared to other football players, obviously), but these kickers probably are close to 100% muscle, and squat 600, and leg press a lot, so assuming he can't hit a FG over 55 yards is pretty unintelligent. Not to mention it's practice.
I read it was actually a 56 yarder that sailed right. What this also fails to tell you is he also came up short on a 50 yarder, and badly missed a 30 something yarder as well that day. He was very inconsistent kicking in the Stadium this weekend; he may want to spend a little extra time there in the next few weeks practicing....
My understanding is that it was a 57 yarder in practice on the small goalposts. However, I would imagine he could care less about making that kick. Yes, it is nice to see...but he wants to do it in the game not in practice. He also made a 66 yarder his senior year of college during practice...but no one cares because it's not a game. The 55 yarder against Marshall at the end of regulation is all anyone cared about. So it's good news that his leg strength appears to be coming back...but I'm just rooting for him to make a few long kicks early on in the games so his confidence is nice and high. I think his career in college is a perfect example of when his confidence is high he is deadly. He tended to go on long streaks of consecutive kicks made.
