Bengals kicker Evan McPherson discusses Super Bowl trip, postseason field goal record
Cincinnati Bengals kicker Evan McPherson has played a big role in his team’s success throughout the postseason. McPherson, a rookie out of Florida, has made 12 field goals in the playoffs so far, including two consecutive game-winning kicks to knock off the AFC’s top two seeds.
McPherson’s strong postseason has put him in some legendary territory. Former NFL kicker Adam Vinatieri currently holds the record for 14 field goals in a single postseason, meaning that McPherson is just two away from tying the record and three field goals away from breaking it.
As the Bengals begin preparations for Super Bowl 56, McPherson admitted that the record is something that he has his eyes on. But ultimately, he wants the Bengals to score as many points as possible, however they come.
“We just need three more in the Super Bowl to break the record [and] two more to tie,” McPherson said, via Pro Football Talk. “That’s definitely something we’re going to shoot for. We’ll see how it goes, I’d like to score a lot of touchdowns in the Super Bowl. However we can get points in the Super Bowl, we’ll do it.”
The Bengals used their fifth round draft pick in the latest draft on McPherson, and he has proven to be every bit worthy of that selection. As a rookie, he connected on 28 of his 33 field goal attempts in the regular season. He made 46 of his 48 extra point attempts.
In the postseason, though, McPherson has come up extremely clutch for the Bengals. He connected on a walk-off field goal last week to knock off the Tennessee Titans, the AFC’s top seed in Nashville. In Arrowhead Stadium, McPherson stepped up in overtime and had another walk-off field goal, this time securing the AFC title for Cincinnati.
McPherson’s confidence is sky-high as the Bengals enter Super Bowl 56
After his strong regular season, McPherson was named the PFWA rookie kicker of the year. But his success isn’t something that has come as a surprise to anybody on the Bengals.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow said after McPherson’s game-winning kick against the Titans that McPherson knew he was going to make the field goal before he even got on the field. That confidence is something that has been apparent since the preseason.
“That guy is unbelievable,” Burrow said. “He was talking to Brandon [Allen] as he was going out to kick, and he gave a little warmup swing and he said, ‘Ah, it looks like we’re going to the AFC Championship,’ right before he went out there and kicked it. We knew exactly what we had as soon as he walked into the building in camp and we just saw how he carried himself.
“You know exactly how a kicker is going to perform when obviously everyone at this level can kick through the uprights, but it’s how you handle yourself in the locker room that shows us that you have the confidence to go out there and make a kick like this and perform the way he did in a game like this. We knew exactly what kind of guy we had in camp.”