<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker.<\/p>\n
More help is on the way for the Kansas City Chiefs; the two-time defending Super Bowl champions have opened the 21-day practice window for kicker Harrison Butker to return from injured reserve, according to Matt Derrick of Chiefs Digest on December 11.<\/p>\n
The Chiefs placed Butker on IR on November 14. While on IR, Butker had surgery to trim the meniscus in his left knee, according to NFL Media\u2019s Ian Rapoport. Butker was never expected to be sidelined longer than the four weeks he was required to stay on IR, so being activated in Week 15 \u2014 which is the first week he was eligible to return from IR \u2014 falls in line with his original timeline.<\/p>\n
Matthew Wright, who was the latest kicker to replace Butker in Kansas City\u2019s lineup, filled in admirably over the last two games. He made 8-of-9 field goal attempts over that timeframe as well as 2-of-2 PATs.<\/p>\n
Thanks to his efforts against the divisional-rival Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday Night Football (4-0f-4 field goal attempts, 1-0f-1 PATs), Wright was named the AFC Special Teams Player of the Week for Week 15.<\/p>\n
Butker, who signed a four-year, $25.6 million extension with the Chiefs this offseason, could return to the starting lineup as soon as Sunday, when Kansas City travels to face the Cleveland Browns.<\/p>\n
Matthew Wright at Forefront of \u2018Doing for the Division\u2019
\nWright, who has played in a total of three games for the Chiefs this season, was the hero for Kansas City in Week 15 in what was a very dramatic finish.<\/p>\n
The Chiefs had the final possession in Week 15 against the Chargers and gave Wright an opportunity to kick a 31-yard field goal with one second left in the game and trailing by one point. Wright made the field goal but hit the left upright before doing so, which had everyone in Arrowhead Stadium holding their breath until the officials held their arms up to show the field goal was good.<\/p>\n
Because the field goal won the game and subsequently the division for the Chiefs, NBC Sports commentator Mike Tirico coined that moment the \u201cdoink for the division\u201d while it was happening in realtime.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the media on Monday, December 9, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid noted Wright\u2019s confidence, which he believes helped him thrive in a big moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I think he\u2019s (Matthew Wright) got a quiet confidence about him,\u201d Reid explained.\u201dI think he realizes that he\u2019s a legitimate kicker, at least that\u2019s the persona that he presents to everybody. I think all [of] the guys on the team have confidence in him. We\u2019re not sitting there going, \u2018Hey listen, we have some guy that\u2019s never done this before and doesn\u2019t have a track record with us.\u2019 He comes in and he just goes, \u2018Okay, line me up and let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n
X Users Reacted to Harrison Butker Update
\nUsers on X, formerly Twitter, reacted to Derrick\u2019s update on Butker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker. More help is on the way for the Kansas City Chiefs; the two-time defending Super Bowl champions have opened the 21-day practice … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16295,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16293\/revisions\/16295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}