MIKE LOPRESTI: Vinatieri, four kicks from history, was lucky to survive second game

The record book waits to see Adam Vinatieri soon. Come to think of it, so does the senior menu at Bob Evans.

Four more field goals, and Mr. Middle Age will stand alone at 566, passing Morten Andersen for the most ever. He will become the king of kickers, at the age of 45. Maybe now would be a good time to remember how it all began.

The heat index was near 100 degrees as the New England Patriots took the field in Miami against the Dolphins. It was Sept. 1, 1996. The Miami quarterback was Dan Marino. The New England quarterback was Drew Bledsoe. The Patriots coach was Bill Parcells. The New England franchise had never won a Super Bowl.

Up north, the Indianapolis Colts were hosting Arizona that day in the RCA Dome. The Colts quarterback was Jim Harbaugh. The coach was Lindy Infante. The kicker was Cary Blanchard. Elsewhere in the league, Cleveland had no team. Houston did, but it was called the Oilers, and its running back, Eddie George, would end up NFL offensive rookie of the year. There were only three divisions in each conference. The Super Bowl had just turned XXX.

Bill Clinton was still in his first term as U.S. president. Peyton Manning was a junior at Tennessee. Andrew Luck was 6 years old. Darius Leonard, the one-Colt wrecking crew in Washington last weekend, was 13 months old.

And with 12:10 left in the first half in Miami, an undrafted Patriots free agent rookie named Adam Vinatieri kicked a 25-yard field goal to cut the Dolphins’ lead to 10-3. He was from South Dakota State, and a former Amsterdam Admiral in Europe, and nobody saw him coming. The guy holding for him that day was Tom Tupa.

“He was a pretty confident kid back then,” Tupa said over the phone this week. “Like all kids coming out of college, they feel like they were going to make their mark, and he was no different. I think he felt like he had nothing to lose.”

Tupa has no recollection of the first field goal, or the next week at Buffalo, when Vinatieri missed four of five attempts. That was a quick way for a rookie to lose a job, especially with an impatient coach who had tested Vinatieri all training camp. There is a story that one day Parcells told the other New England players they would not have to do conditioning drills if Vinatieri made a practice kick and would have to do double if he missed. “It tells you a lot about Parcells that he stuck with him, because he saw something as well,” Tupa said of that horrible second game. “Obviously, it got a lot better.”

What Tupa does recall is the time Vinatieri, who was also kicking off for the Patriots, had to make a touchdown-saving tackle on Herschel Walker during a return in Dallas. It was like a VW running down an SUV. “I remember, because it was a big story,” Tupa said.

So 22 years later, here we are. Vinatieri is at 562 regular-season field goals and counting, and the Hall of Fame is a mortal lock. Manning has come and gone as a pro, in two cities. The RCA Dome is a memory. There have been three more U.S. presidents. Harbaugh is now coaching Michigan. Blanchard is gone, dead at 47 from a heart attack.

Eddie George, the 1996 rookie of the year, played his last game 14 seasons ago.

Other stats can also put Vinatieri’s longevity in some context. There have been 21 new NFL stadiums built since he kicked that first field goal. He is older than nine head coaches who won the Super Bowl, including the likes of Joe Gibbs, Chuck Noll, Don Shula—and Parcells.

He is the oldest current Colt—by 13 years. Remember, his first 263 field goals were in a Patriots uniform. Vinatieri was 33 when he arrived in Indianapolis. No one on this year’s roster is as old as Vinatieri was when he kicked his first field goal for the Colts.

Vinatieri is three years older than Knute Rockne was when he coached his final game at Notre Dame. He is older than both Theodore Roosevelt and John Kennedy were when they went to the White House. At New England, he was a teammate of Dave Meggett. At Indianapolis, he was a teammate of Davin Meggett, Dave’s son.

Frank Reich is his seventh head coach. Eighth, if you count Bruce Arians, when he filled in for Chuck Pagano.

As for Tupa, he lives back in his hometown of Brecksville, Ohio, where he works for the city and travels hither and yon to see his kids play in various sports. Every so often, he’ll turn on the television and watch Vinatieri kick another field goal and recall how he was in on the ground floor of a legendary career. Good thing he didn’t bobble that snap back in Miami.

“I can take the credit if you like. Who knows what would have happened?” he joked. He understood then Vinatieri had potential. But all this? Who knew?

“You can’t ever pinpoint anyone who will have a career as long as he’s enjoying. Was he a good kicker? Absolutely. But to do something this long is pretty incredible. I remember him working hard when we were together, and it keeps paying off for him year after year.”

Now, just a few more field goals, and Vinatieri will be at the top. Sunday in Philadelphia, perhaps. That’d be fitting, against the defending Super Bowl champions, since he has helped win four of those himself.

Or maybe the following week at home against Houston. It’d be poetic, kicking No. 566 against a team that didn’t even exist when he made No. 1.

Or maybe the week after that, on Thursday night in New England—the place where it all started so long, long ago. Back when nobody had Thursday games, except on Thanksgiving. Forty-two percent of all the Super Bowls ever played have come since Vinatieri’s first field goal. No wonder Tom Tupa can’t remember it.•

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Lopresti is a lifelong resident of Richmond and a graduate of Ball State University. He was a columnist for USA Today and Gannett newspapers for 31 years; he covered 34 Final Fours, 30 Super Bowls, 32 World Series and 16 Olympics. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at mjl5853@aol.com.