Are 61-yard field goals going to be the new norm of the NFL?

Welcome to Gramatica Errors, SB Nation’s best weekly NFL kicking and punting column. As always, we will do our best to avoid any and all foot puns. Now let’s kick things off ...

It is a rare occasion fans want to see a kicker or punter. In most cases in football, bringing on someone to kick a ball is an admission of defeat. A missed opportunity. A resignation. The word “punt” itself has come to signify giving up on something.

Even when tradition dictates that a kick is the right call, people hate it. “And here comes the field goal unit” on fourth-and-short will bring down a chorus of boos — it is almost un-American, the act. We as a nation are trained to go for it. Analytics tell us that we should go for it. Kicking, in almost every instance, is failure.

Until the moment that it isn’t.

On Sunday, Jake Elliott, a rookie kicker for the Philadelphia Eagles, hit a 61-yard field goal as time expired to beat the New York Giants.

Like many things in life, this kick is better experienced in Spanish:

It’s incredible to think that Elliott, a product of Memphis, may have had the highlight of a career in just his second game. Making a kick of that length, in that situation, at sea level, at home ... just not that many opportunities like that will ever arise.

It also begs the question: Is this the new norm? Are kickers getting so good that we’re regularly going to see 61-yarders?

I reached out to my old pal Chuck Zodda, special teams and kicking analyst for Inside the Pylon, about this and what he thought about the kick.

“Since 2010, there have been 43 attempts from 60+ yards and just 10 makes,” he wrote in a DM. “When NFL kickers only make 25 percent from a certain distance, it’s impressive. Kid has a big leg.”

And what of the future? Are we heading to a day when we see a 70-yard kick in a game?

“Never,” he wrote. (Boooo!) “Risk of a return TD on a short kick is too high because you have so many big OL out there in FG protection. Maybe in Denver with a huge leg at the end of the first half, but otherwise, coaches too afraid, and rightly so, to try it.”

Perchance to dream. For now, Elliott, just know that we here in the Hoof Horde are in awe. And we’re delighted that your parents were there to witness that kick.

It’s one thing for a punter to boot a 61-yard bomb in a college game. It’s another thing for him to then get double-teamed in coverage and absolutely wreck the opposing player when he gets annoyed.

And it’s another thing entirely to then post video of all this happening to social media and laugh about it.

Take it away, Florida punter Johnny Townsend.

You see that, everyone? Punters are cool! Talking trash, laying the smack down! Sure it was against Kentucky, but we’ll take that every week! No one messes with big man Johnny Townsend!

(Dear future opponents: Do not kill my son Johnny Townsend. He just got excited. He’s merely a punter. Please, for the love of God, be gentle with him.)

It feels like a million years ago, but Thursday Night Football was ... exciting this week? A 41-39 thriller saw the Rams triumph over the 49ers in a game that fans loved.

That being said: What the hell, Rams? You have the best punter in the game with Johnny Hekker and you’re going to deny him to us by going and figuring out how to move the ball on offense? What is this shit? I don’t watch Rams games to see Jared Goff get Robert Woods the ball in space or place perfect over-the-shoulder bombs to Sammy Watkins. I watch for the sweet, sweet punts of the Hekk man. And I’m being denied.

The Rams have the highest-scoring offense in the NFL after three weeks. The Rams! Have some decency. Jesus. This is piggish, Sean McVay. It’s selfish. You better remember who you are and start running those HB dives for two yards by Todd Gurley. There was a dignity in that. That’s Rams football right there! Gurley for two, Gurley for two, incomplete pass, Hekker.

And look at you now. High-octane offense. Scoring. GTFOH.