It ’s a fine afternoon in the Mile High City . BehindquarterbackPeyton Manning ’s volatile offense , the Denver Broncos have amassed a 10 - 2 record . Today they ’re host the Tennessee Titans , a police squad that ’s lost three of its past four games .
The Titans have put up a good fight over the first half - hour of gameplay . Three seconds before halftime , the score is Tennessee 21 , Denver 17 . Enter Broncos kicker Matt Prater . clip out to the Denver46 - G production line , he readies himself for the play of his liveliness . A mighty kick sends the ball soaring end - over - end across the field as a spooky bunch prevail its breath .
And then the property extravasate . With ease , the ball sail through the yellow crossbar in Tennessee ’s endzone . It ’s the longest complete field end in NFL account , a utterly made 64 - yard ( 58.5 - meter ) drill . Perhaps emboldened by Prater ’s heroics , the Broncos go on to squelch the Titans in the 2nd half , thus clinching a playoff bunk .
Elevated Play
The game we ’ve just described took place on Dec. 8 , 2013 . Five years after , Prater ’s 64 - yarder still halt the all - time distance record . Although his accomplishment has never been bested , jaw - drop football kicks are nothing new in the Rocky Mountains .
Three of the fivelongest line of business goals that the NFL has ever seen were made in Denver ’s Mile High Stadium . Broncos big Jason Elam nailed a 63 - yarder ( 57.6 - m ) there in 1998 , a feat that was matched by Sebastian Janikowski when his Oakland Raiders come to town 13 geezerhood later .
But to hear some sportsman fanstell it , those three kicks should have asterisks attach . The prescribed elevation of Colorado ’s Washington is exactly 1 air mile ( 1,609 meters ) above sea spirit level . No other NFL metropolis sits anywhere close to that elevation ; the runner - up is Glendale , Arizona , which tower a little over1,000 feet(304 meters ) above ocean spirit level .
Denver ’s elevation affect the sporting events up there . When a football is kicked at a Broncos rest home game , it ’s liable to cover more length than it would in humbled elevations like San Diego . This does n’t just affect three - point field goals ; kickoffs tend to go farther as well .
For his book " Football Physics , the Science of the Game , " University of Nebraska professorTimothy Gayran the numbers on eight different team from cities that ( basically ) model at sea level — like the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots — that played at least one route biz in Denver during the 2001 or 2002 seasons .
He determine that in those two years , the call in kicker from miserable - elevation Ithiel Town enjoyed some neat numbers when they went to Denver . Up in Colorado , their kickoffs traveled 70.1 1000 ( 64 meter ) on modal . Back in their several rest home field , that average send-off distance dropped to 62.8 G ( 57.4 meters ) .
Low Pressure, High Performance?
To realize those crazy numbers , we ’ll need to talk about air density . Pretend you ’ve got a jet pack . If you were to take off at sea layer and move around through Earth ’s atmosphere in a straight vertical line , the concentration of the melodic line around you wouldget loweras your altitude increased . This is due to a universal law : As the distance between two object uprise , thegravitational pullthat they wield on each other lessens .
zephyr molecule are not nontaxable . The pull of Earth ’s gravity is more strongly feel by those that are confining to the major planet ’s center . At or below ocean level , gravitational attractionpacks the moleculestightly together . And the weight of all the molecules pose higher up in the atmosphere really bears down on the ones fill broken top . In upshot , the air itself grows denser .
Way up in the Mile High City , the air ’s only about82 percentas dense as it is at sea floor . A orb kicked skyward in Denver will therefore encounter fewer air speck than it would in Miami . That ’s significant to observe because air molecule create drag .
Dragis a forcefulness that pushes against solid trunk as they go through fluids or gasses . A punted or kicked football game will campaign headlong into a steady outpouring of air molecules . Their combined drag will slow down it down , sometimes dramatically . But think , in low-spirited density air , molecule are few and farther between . Therefore , footballs can — and often do — encounter less drag in Denver .
Yet kick on the Broncos ' home turf wo n’t guarantee success for kicker or punters . ALT quash melodic line density ( and by extension , retarding force ) , but inhuman weather increases it . And boy , can Colorado get parky .
A 2011 resume ofNFL statistical recordsfound that in outside game played at temperatures of 39.2 point Fahrenheit ( 4 degree Celsius ) or lower , field destination accuracy drops by 1.7 percent , while the ordinary punt length is about 1 yard ( 0.91 meters ) short than normal . ( These findings hold true throughout the league . )
So it ’s to Matt Prater ’s credit that his record - breaking airfield goal split the upright piano from 64 yards ( 58.5 meters ) out even though Denver ’s temperature had lessen to14 grade Fahrenheit(-10 degrees Celsius ) at the prison term .
Whatever the weather , kicking specialists need to be on guard duty against self-complacency . Denver ’s reputation as the mecca of ultra - long domain goal is well - establish across the conference . According to Patriots greatStephen Gostkowski , that Mile High mystique can fox confab kicker into overestimating their abilities .
When in doubtfulness , always " air " on the side of caveat .
