Thread by @SamBorden

20 years ago this week, Jeff Wilkins became the NFL's last barefoot kicker. But a few months back when I called Wilkins about it, he said, "I’ve been waiting a long time to tell someone this:

“I wasn't barefoot.”

So, a🧵. About feet. And how maybe history got it wrong. (1/14)

OK, first some background: Barefoot kicking was totally a thing! Tony Franklin was the first guy to go naked from the ankle down in 1979, and through the next decade there were a bunch of kickers (plus some punters) who eschewed shoes. God, the 80s were weird. (2/14)

If this all sounds absurd, well, it was: There was literally no science behind kicking barefoot. It was simply a group of dudes deciding that it made more sense to kick with their little piggies free to go to the market. “My foot felt faster,” Mike Lansford said.(3/14)

Others felt similarly. Paul McFadden was NFC Rookie of the Year in 1984 kicking barefoot! But like all fads, barefoot kicking soon began to fade. I mean, if Zubaz pants couldn’t last forever, what chance did walking-around-barefoot-in-frozen-ice-and-snow really have? (4/14)

By 1990, Rich Karlis and Mike Lansford were the only barefoot kickers left in the league. When both retired at the end of that season, it seemed like barefoot kicking in the NFL was done … until Wilkins came along 12 years later.

Suddenly, a new era was afoot. (Sorry.)
[5/14]

Full disclosure: when I first talked with Wilkins and he told me he wasn't barefoot, I thought he was crazy. Look at the photo in the first tweet! OF COURSE HE'S BAREFOOT. Everyone knows he was the last barefoot kicker. It's even on his Wikipedia page. (6/14)

But still, who doesn’t love a good podiatry mystery, right? So, skeptical as I was, I went to Youngstown, Ohio - where Wilkins lives - to hear him out. When we sat down, I went "Last Dance" style and literally showed him the photo on an iPad. “I see toes there!” I said. (7/14)

He was ready for this. “You do see toes,” he said. “BUT LOOK AT ALL THAT TAPE.” This was his argument. There was so much tape wrapped around his foot (save for his toes) that it’s as if he’s wearing a shoe. “Therefore,” he concluded, “I am saying it was not barefoot.” (8/14)

We talked more. He explained that he kicked with a shoe on for basically his entire career, save for the first 7 games in 2002. Why change then? He was going through a slump, he said, and needed to try something. Remember, kickers are (usually) pretty strange. (9/14)

In truth, Wilkins distinctly remembers NOT wanting to be fully barefoot. His slump was due to a glitch, he said, where the spikes on his cleat would drag on the ground as he swung his leg. The tape was a perfect compromise: thick as a shoe, but smooth on the bottom. (10/14)

Wilkins's argument was persuasive, but I needed another opinion. So I went to the world's foremost savant on NFL kicking: Justin Tucker, obviously. I earnestly asked for his thoughts. His initial response was a lot of laughing. Like, A LOT of laughing. (11/14)

Tucker made some great points involving flip-flops. But beyond the etymology argument, there was also an intellectual one: Karlis & Lansford reveled in being barefoot. Wilkins didn't. “I was a fake barefoot kicker,” he said. "Those guys were legit. I never wanted to be." (12/14)

Look, I’m no expert even if I did just do a bazillion-tweet thread about men taking off shoes. But this is how I net out:

I think he WASN’T barefoot. I think we've all been led astray. And I definitely think someone should change Wilkins’s Wikipedia page. *bangs gavel* (13/14)

Interested in more in-depth analysis of, uh, feet? Want to get really granular about pre-wrap? Or dive deep into the endless abyss of lunacy that was the 1980s? Read my whole story about Jeff Wilkins and the-barefoot-kicker-who-wasn’t right here: espn.com/nfl/story/_/id…
(14/14)

Bonus un-numbered tweet! I also talked barefoot kickers with @PabloTorre, who never met a pun he wouldn't take out for a walk. Check out today's ESPN Daily podcast to get your day off on the right foot. (Sorry again). open.spotify.com/episode/1OGymk…