11:02 am | January 7, 2019 | Go to Source | Author:
Kicker Cody Parkey has been getting roasted for missing the potentially game-winning field goal in the Chicago Bears‘ playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Turns out he wasn’t totally to blame.
The NFL officially changed the 43-yard miss to a block by Eagles defensive tackle Treyvon Hester on Monday. The lineman barely got a finger on the ball, but it changed the trajectory enough that the kick hit the upright, dropped down to the crossbar and then out.
“Me and Haloti [Ngata] … we got penetration, got the hand up like coach always says,” Hester said, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. “Tipped off my fingertips. Felt good … [but] actually, I thought I didn’t get enough of it, I thought it was going to go in. When I saw it going in, I turned back around [away from the goal posts]. Then I heard everybody screaming, I was like, oh, [expletive] … he missed it.”
In the immediate aftermath of the game, it doesn’t appear that many people picked up on the fact that Hester got a hand on the ball. Parkey, who had been under fire in Chicago well before the game for missing a league-high 10 kicks during the regular season, didn’t shy away from the media after the contest.
“You can’t make this up,” Parkey said. “I feel terrible. I let the team down. That’s on me. I have to own it. I have to be a man. Unfortunately, that’s the way it went today.”