Should Seahawks extend Jason Myers now?

The distance that separates Myers from the NFL's $7 million kickers and why it matters

The Seattle Seahawks have bigger decisions at hand than Jason Myers, but how they handle the situation at kicker as he enters the final year of his contract could have major implications for the future. Kickers can make or break a dynasty (ask the early-2000s Patriots and Adam Vinatieri—all three Super Bowl wins were by a field goal) and Myers was tasked with attempting FIFTY-SIX field goals last season, including playoffs.

He made 52 of them. And was 59-of-59 on extra points.

However, the market for premium kickers has been raised to $7 million per season this year on new deals for Brandon Aubry and Chris Boswell. It’s not the wildest number in the league, as Myers has a cap hit of $7.25 million in 2026 already. But today is actually Jason Myers’ 35th birthday.

Is it better to let the season play out or give Myers the same extension that Boswell, who is the same age, on Monday?

Boswell’s New Flexico

The Steelers gave Boswell a four-year, $28 million contract extension this week. He is 57 days older than Myers, so essentially the same age. Is that a good deal for Myers? Let’s see how they compare.

Boswell was the NFL’s first-team All-Pro kicker in 2024 and he’s been one of the best long-distance kickers in the NFL for a few years:

Since 2021, Boswell is 43-of-51 on 50+ attempts, an average of 8.6/10.2 per season.

In that same period of time, Myers is 31-of-43 on 50+ attempts, an average of 6.2/8.6 per season:

However, Myers is 9-of-12 in each of the last two seasons on those kicks.

It’s worth noting that the NFL has made several big rule changes that directly impact kickers and their accuracy:

• The “K-Ball rule” in 2025 allows kickers much more time before game day to prepare the kicking ball for action, which some have attributed to the ability to now kick 65 or even 70-yard attempts with better accuracy

• The new kickoff rules in 2024 means that kickers don’t have to expend as much energy for what used to be “just go for a touchback” leg booms

There was a time when Myers’ touchback% on kickoffs was 70-79%. Last season it was 17.5%. Because teams don’t want a touchback anymore, they want it to go into the “landing zone” to hopefully pin teams back inside the 30.

It’s such a mental position that any time kickers are asked to do something different with their kicks, it can screw up their field goals. Aubry, the most impressive long distance kicker in NFL history, says he doesn’t practice those extremely long kicks because it would mess with his mechanics.

The same theory could be applied to kickoffs without trying for a 80 or 90-yard distance touchback.

Brand’s New Deal

Brandon Aubry is 4 years younger than Myers and Boswell, but despite not entering the league until 2023 has already made 35 kicks of 50+ yards:

When I look at the contracts for Aubry and Boswell at $7 million per season, I am not immediately drawn to their accuracy on all kicks. It’s their dependability on long distance kicks that sets them apart from everyone else. Similarly, Ka’imi Fairbairn, who signed a $6.5m extension this year, has made 22 50+ yard field goals in the last two seasons.

This is not Myers’ strong suit, as he has really juiced up his field goal totals in the 30-49 range, going 27-of-30 from that distance in 2025.

boswell’s contract not updated here yet

This could be the result of a combination of factors, including Seattle’s elite defense/punt return setting the Seahawks offense up in scoring range more often than other teams, plus the unsettling fact that Seattle ranked 21st in red zone touchdown rate.

So when we say that Myers “made a bunch of field goals and was extremely reliable” that is true.

The Seahawks need only look over at their biggest competition — the Rams — to see a team that shuffles through kickers every year and it has at times cost them pivotal games that might have given L.A. another Super Bowl under Sean McVay if not for consistently ranking near the bottom of special teams. Just last year, the Rams had to change kickers midseason and although they were satisfied with Harrison Mevis, he too has no long distance ability to speak of…Mevis went 2-of-2 on 50+ attempts, likely because McVay has no trust in him.

When the Seahawks asked Myers to make a 61-yard field goal to beat the Rams in 11, it wasn’t even close. Myers is rarely that close beyond 55 yards.

However, when Seattle needed him to make six field goals to beat the Colts, including the game-winner from 56, or setting a Super Bowl record for most makes, Myers was true.

The answer to the question of whether Seattle should extend Myers is not straight down the middle.

What would you do?

Riding Folk Tails

Aside from the two months between him and Boswell, there is only one kicker in the NFL older than Myers: That would be 42-year-old Nick Folk.

Fans don’t have to think about Folk very often, a player who was drafted the same year as Calvin Johnson and JaMarcus Russell and Joe Thomas, and his career nearly ended when he was Myers’ age.

But since then, he has redefined his career by being insanely accurate, making 93% of his kicks since 2020 and 96.3% since 2023. He has led the league in accuracy for three straight seasons.

He also has no distance to speak of.

Folk is not the kicker you sign to help your offense score points when they reach the 35 or the 40-yard line. As such, he’s also not paid that much relative to his peers: Folk signed a 2-year, $9 million contract with the Falcons this year.

He has made under $3 million per season while being the league’s “most accurate” kicker.

Folk’s presence in the league also emphasizes that if your team loses a kicker, there’s usually someone out there who can consistently bang out 45-yarders. Maybe even 50-yarders. These are not the types of kickers that are impossible to find or too expensive to keep.

And as the NFL has made it easier for kickers to make their kicks—and easier to make long distance kicks—the threat of losing someone like a Folk or an Eddy Pineiro (49ers picked him up during the and he only missed one field goal try over 16 games) has lost all its power.

This isn’t to say that the Seahawks shouldn’t make every effort to keep Jason Myers, but maybe they need to push back a little bit if his agent coming to the table saying, “Well, Brandon Aubry and Chris Boswell make $7 million per season, so my client should obviously make $7.5!”

• By all accounts, kickers have been reaching that number ONLY if they can get over the goal posts from 60-65 yards.

• By all accounts, the NFL has also been working overtime to reduce the individual impact of most kickers by making it easier—not harder, like they maybe should be doing—to be accurate from any distance.

• By most accounts, Myers falls into the upper tier of the middle-class kicker and not the bottom tier of the upper-class kickers.

There are a lot of kickers worse than Jason Myers. There aren’t a lot who are better than Jason Myers. And yet the distance that separates them from Jason Myers is significant, even if it’s only 5 yards.

Seaside Joe 2626