While Bengals kicker Evan McPherson eyes Sunday's matchup against the Raiders (1 p.m.-Cincinnati's Fox 19) at Paycor Stadium, he allows himself a glance into the future when he looks at the Las Vegas operation.
Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson, a one-time All-Pro and one of the most accurate kickers in the game, is one those guys McPherson looked up to while kicking for the alma mater at Fort Payne High School.
Raiders punter AJ Cole III, a two-time All-Pro, once gave Bengals rookie punting sensation Ryan Rehkow some advice at a kicking camp. Jacob Bobenmoyer, the Raiders long-snapper, made the move from Denver to Las Vegas last year with special teams coordinator Tom McMahon and helped lead the Raiders to the top of special teams play in 2023.
(After eight weeks, the computer spits out the Bengals are ranked 14th in teams, the Raiders seventh.)
"All three of them are veteran guys who have proven themselves and have contracts that I feel like represent that," McPherson says. "They're a really good group of specialists, but I think we're a good group of young specialists trying to get better and get there. That's the dream. Keep improving."
Bengals special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons agrees with McPherson that his trio that includes long-snapper Cal Adomitis has the potential to join the Raiders in the top tier of the league.
"Sure they can. It's up to them," Simmons says. "They have to rely on each other. It starts with Cal. He has to put the ball where Ryan needs it. Ryan has to put the ball where Evan needs it. Evan's at the end of the line. A plus B has to equal C."
Cole, in his sixth season, has his math in the usual columns. He leads the league in yards per punt with a 52.9-yard per average. Rehkow, bidding to become the first Bengal to average 50 yards per punt, is ninth in the league with 50.4. Rehkow is also third in the league in net at 44.9 yards per punt and is third for inside-the-20 percentage.
The tight-knit fraternity of punters and kickers is a small world. It was Rehkow's stunning 64.5-yard average in his debut in this year's opener that broke Cole's NFL record of gross punting average in a game.
New Era Vs. Old School.
And on Monday, Simmons declared him their long-term punter.
But Rehkow is only thinking about, well, thinking.
"The biggest thing right now is the mental side of the game," Rehkow says. "Sometimes you're not going to have a lot of punts in a game. Sometimes you're going to have a lot of punts in a game. Not that it changes much for me. But I feel like just being dialed into the situation, kind of what that calls for, rather than just, shoot, I'm going to go out there and hit a big ball. I feel like Darrin has been helping me out a ton with that. Cal and Evan have both been super supportive of everything and it's been good."
Small world?
Rehkow crossed paths with Cole at a summer camp in Alabama about a year and a half ago and actually got a tip or two and some conversation from him.
"We've met a couple of times. He's helped me with a couple of different things back when I was in college," Rehkow says. "AJ is definitely a guy I looked up to in the sense the way he's able to change the game with his punts.
"He's right up at the top of the NFL. His direction, consistency, you name it, I feel like he's got it. I feel like mechanically we're different, but I think there are so many things that he does that are kind of textbook. By the book. I feel like his drop is about as consistent as it comes and I feel like that always sets you up for good kicks."
With history as a guide, Rehkow is right on the great Cole's heels.
If Cole gets off three punts Sunday and averages 50 yards, it would be his 28th game with at least that average, the second best since 2019 and tied for 14th in NFL history. Rehkow has punted in six NFL games and already has three such games of 50.
If Cole puts two inside the 20 against the Bengals, it would be his 50th game of multiple punts inside the 20, tied for the seventh most by a punter in his first six seasons in this century. Rehkow already has four multiple games inside the 20.
And he hasn't even punted in two games. He's not sure how to feel about that. The two games he had family here, his mother-in-law came to the Washington game last month and his parents came in from Washington state last Sunday for the Eagles game.
Naturally in those two games, he did what he never did before this season and never stepped on the field to punt. His in-laws are due in for the Raiders game.
"You never want to punt," Rehkow says. "But you also want to be ready to do your job. No one in the family has seen me punt yet. I don't know if that's good luck or bad luck."
After listening to Rehkow break down any move Cole makes, if it sounds like punters kickers watch film, it's because they do. McPherson has been watching Carlson long before the Vikings took him in the 2018 fifth round out of Auburn.
"I was closer in age to his brothers Anders, but Daniel and my older brother were in the same high school class," says McPherson of the kicking brothers. "Daniel had a great college career, being from Alabama and he was the kicker at Auburn, I watched a lot of him in high school."
Since Carlson came into the league, he's got the fifth best field-goal percentage (88.5) of kickers with at least 100 field goals. Since McPherson came into the league, he's got two more 50-yarders than Carlson, 24-22.
"Daniel's game is pretty cool," McPherson says. "He's done a great job lowering the trajectory of his ball and hitting a ball that doesn't move. His ball stays straight and true and he's figured out a way to do it. It's impressive. I could maybe do it, but right now I feel like I don't have to or need to."
About 20 NFL punters and kickers attend Jamie Kohl's annual summer retreat in Gatlinburg, Tenn., and McPherson and Carlson are among those who work on their games and talk shop. McPherson usually stays with his family, but he'll make it to the sprawling cabin that can sleep 30 and hang with his peers for a bit. He says last year he borrowed a technique from Carlson.
"Being more square though the whole kicking process," McPherson says. "I've gotten away a little bit from it this year. It was to get more power. Because his technique, he can still hit 60-yard balls. But more balls are spinning fast and a little more undercut. That's what I found last year. I was more consistent in ball flight, but I was losing distance with what he's doing."
So Carlson will be here Sunday, but McPherson won't be greeting him with his technique as two of the best try to solve Paycor's Gales of November. This season McPherson has gone back to his collegiate and rookie year roots, which gave rise to the greatest postseason a first-year NFL kicker ever had.
He comes in with three straight misses from 50 (McPherson is 3-for-6 from 50 while Carlson is four of five this season), but McPherson remains extremely confident because his pregames the last few weeks have been perfect.
"I think the biggest thing is not overthinking it," McPherson says. "You can get in your head a lot. You start thinking about the wind too much. You start thinking about the crowd. You can start thinking about the about the outcome. That's never going to be good.
"For me, it's just going out this Sunday with a clear heart and clear mind and trust in God, knowing whatever happens, it's going to be all right, but I'm just going to go out there and kick."
He'll have plenty of company in a game that turns Paycor into one of those summer elite kicking camps for three hours in the fall.
"It will be a challenge for us," Simmons says.
