Raiders Get Their Kicks Out of Carlson

In the midst of an unprecedented season, on and off the field, the Las Vegas Raiders have found optimism in elite kicker Daniel Carlson.

Kicker Daniel Carlson recently signed a lucrative contract with the Las Vegas Raiders and the way he has performed in his first four seasons with the team, you know he will earn every penny.

The 26-year-old Carlson’s extension is worth $18 million over four years, including a $4-million signing bonus and $10.2 million guaranteed. Carlson's $4.6-million per year makes him the third-highest paid kicker in the league.

The Raiders also re-signed standout punter A.J. Cole, also 26, on the same day, so their kicking game is in good hands and feet for years ago come.

Carlson posted this message on Twitter: “Humbled and honored to sign with this great organization @Raiders. Excited to continue on this journey with some great teammates and friends! God is good!!”

Last season, Carlson broke Sebastian Janikowski’s franchise scoring record by two points with 144 for the season, connecting on 33 field goal attempts as Janikowski did in 2019 but adding two more extra points, 45-43.

For his career, Carlson already is eighth on the list of Raiders all-time leading scorers, with 408 points on 96 field goals and 120 extra points, with quite a ways to go to even get close to Janikowski’s franchise record of 1,799.

The 6-5, 215-pound Carlson has 107 points this season in 13 games headed in Saturday’s game at Cleveland against the Browns, and with an extra game added to the NFL schedule in 2021, he can break his record by averaging 10 points over the last four games.

That might seem like a lot, but he scored nine points this season against the Baltimore Ravens, 14 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, 11 against the Miami Dolphins, 10 against the Denver Broncos, nine against the Philadelphia Eagles, 10 against the New York Giants, a career-high 18 against the Dallas Cowboys and nine against the Washington Redskins.

Carlson is averaging 8.2 points per game this season but must do a little better than that to break his record.

“He’s obviously having one of those years,” said Raiders interim head coach Rich Bisaccia, who was Carlson’s special teams' coach before taking over when Coach Jon Gruden resigned in the wake of his email controversy. “He really worked hard in the offseason. He’s gotten a lot stronger individually. But I cannot stay enough about the protection of the unit in front of him.”

Carlson, who has made 11 consecutive field-goal tries in his last four games and has been selected AFC Special Teams Player of the Week twice this season and four times in his career, is tied for fifth among NFL scoring leaders this season.

In the season opener against the Ravens, Carlson kicked a 55-yard field goal with three seconds left in regulation and the Raiders won in overtime; his 45-yard field goal with 20 seconds remaining clinched a 26-17 win over the Steelers; his 22-yard field goal with no time left in overtime game pushed Las Vegas past the Dolphins, 31-28, and his fifth field goal of the game, a 29-yarder, gave the Silver and Black a 36-33 victory over the Cowboys on Thanksgiving.

Earlier against Dallas, his career-high 56-yard field goal with 1:52 left in regulation helped the Raiders get to overtime.

“It’s more of a mental sport for us a lot of times than it is physical,” said Carlson, a fifth-round pick (No. 167 overall) out of Auburn in the 2018 draft by the Minnesota Vikings, who was released after a slow start in his rookie year and signed by the Raiders. “For me, that’s something where experience has definitely paid off. That’s why you see kickers that are a lot older in the league.

“I think mentally I’ve grown a lot over the last few years in the NFL. Just personality, self-belief, all that stuff is huge. I think that's at least 60 percent of kicking and always will be. (But) obviously a team thing. The whole unit as a whole.

“For me, every kick, whether I have one kick or five, six, whatever it may be, every one has the same exact value. It’s points for the team.”

Of course, Raider Nation would rather see Carlson kicking more extra points because every time he attempts a field goal it means the Raiders failed to score a touchdown after they moved into scoring position.

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