The New Orleans Saints had won once all season and were playing their first game under a coach they had met that week. Their kicker had been born without toes on his right foot. With two seconds left on November 8, 1970, trailing the Detroit Lions 17-16 at Tulane Stadium, they sent Tom Dempsey out to try a 63-yard field goal. Nobody in pro football had ever made one longer than 56 yards. Dempsey’s kick cleared the crossbar, the Saints won 19-17, and the record he set that afternoon stood alone for 28 years.
A new coach and a kicker with half a foot
New Orleans fired coach Tom Fears on November 3 with the team at 1-5-1 and replaced him with J.D. Roberts, who had been coaching the minor-league Richmond Roadrunners. The Lions came in at 5-2 and on their way to the playoffs.
Dempsey, from Milwaukee, had been born without toes on his right foot and without four fingers on his right hand. He kicked straight on, not soccer style, in a custom shoe with a flat, squared-off front. Undrafted in 1968, he made the Pro Bowl as a rookie for the Saints in 1969. Fears had pushed the team to sign him, and Dempsey later said the fired coach was the first person he thought of after the game.
Four field goals, the last one from the 37
Dempsey kicked three short field goals, the longest from 29 yards, as the Saints traded scores with Detroit. Mel Farr ran for a Lions touchdown and tight end Charlie Sanders caught one. Tom Barrington ran for the Saints’ only touchdown in the fourth quarter. Then Detroit drove into position for Errol Mann, whose 18-yard field goal put the Lions ahead 17-16 with 11 seconds left.
Al Dodd returned the kickoff to the Saints’ 28. Billy Kilmer hit Dodd for 17 yards, and he got out of bounds at the New Orleans 45 with two seconds left. On the sideline, special teams coach Don Heinrich gave the order: “Tell Stumpy to get ready to go in and kick a long one.”
The goalposts in 1970 stood on the goal line, not at the back of the end zone. Holder Joe Scarpati set up at the Saints’ 37, a yard deeper than usual, and asked the linemen to hold their blocks a little longer. Jackie Burkett snapped. Bill Cody held off the rush on the right side as Alex Karras lunged at the kick. The ball cleared the crossbar, and Dempsey was carried off the field by his teammates. So was Roberts, a winner in his first NFL game as a head coach.
“I was more concerned about kicking it straight because I felt I could handle the distance, whatever it was,” Dempsey said 40 years later. “I knew I was going to get a perfect snap from Jackie Burkett and a perfect hold from Joe Scarpati. It was all up to me. I had to hit it sweet.” Kilmer remembered some of the Lions laughing as the Saints lined up. “They thought Tom had no chance,” he said.
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit Lions | 0 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 17 |
| New Orleans Saints | 3 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 19 |
By the numbers
| Number | Detail |
|---|---|
| 63 | Yards on the winning kick, from the Saints’ 37 to goalposts on the goal line |
| 56 | The previous record, set by Baltimore’s Bert Rechichar in 1953 |
| 4 of 5 | Dempsey’s field goals in the game |
| 16 for 28, 141 | Billy Kilmer’s passing for the Saints |
| 2 | Interceptions by Jackie Burkett, who also snapped on the winning kick. Holder Joe Scarpati had another |
| 11 seconds | Time left when Errol Mann gave Detroit a 17-16 lead |
| 2-11-1 | The Saints’ final record. The Lions finished 10-4 and made the playoffs |
The shoe, the rule and the goalposts
Not everyone celebrated. Dallas Cowboys president Tex Schramm questioned Dempsey’s shoe and compared its kicking surface to “the head of a golf club.” The league had approved the shoe in 1969 and stood by it, and commissioner Pete Rozelle sided with Dempsey.
The league still made two changes in the years that followed. In 1974 the goalposts moved from the goal line to the end line, 10 yards deeper. Under today’s geometry, Dempsey’s kick from the 37 would be a 73-yarder. In 1977 the league added what became known as the Dempsey rule: a shoe worn by a player with “an artificial limb on his kicking leg must have a kicking surface that conforms to that of a normal kicking shoe.”
How the record fell
Three kickers matched Dempsey’s 63 before anyone beat it. Matt Prater finally did on December 8, 2013, with a 64-yarder at the end of the first half in Denver, 43 years and one month after Dempsey’s kick. Justin Tucker’s 66-yarder in 2021 had a familiar finish: it came on the final play at Detroit and beat the Lions 19-17, the same score as in 1970.
| Yards | Kicker | Team | Opponent | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 63 | Tom Dempsey | New Orleans Saints | vs. Detroit Lions | Nov. 8, 1970 |
| 63 (tie) | Jason Elam | Denver Broncos | vs. Jacksonville Jaguars | Oct. 25, 1998 |
| 63 (tie) | Sebastian Janikowski | Oakland Raiders | at Denver Broncos | Sept. 12, 2011 |
| 63 (tie) | David Akers | San Francisco 49ers | at Green Bay Packers | Sept. 9, 2012 |
| 64 | Matt Prater | Denver Broncos | vs. Tennessee Titans | Dec. 8, 2013 |
| 66 | Justin Tucker | Baltimore Ravens | at Detroit Lions | Sept. 26, 2021 |
| 68 | Cam Little | Jacksonville Jaguars | at Las Vegas Raiders | Nov. 2, 2025 |
The current record belongs to Jacksonville’s Cam Little, who hit a 68-yarder as the first half ended in Las Vegas on November 2, 2025. It cut the Raiders’ lead to 6-3, and the Jaguars won 30-29 in overtime. “You kick it long enough and you kick it straight enough, it’s going to go in,” Little said, echoing what Dempsey had said about his own kick. Little added a 67-yarder against Tennessee on January 4, 2026.
What was unthinkable in 1970 is now routine. Kickers tried 22 field goals of 60 yards or more in the 2025 regular season and made 12. Through Week 6 of 2026 they are 4 of 8 from that range. The longest make this season is Tyler Loop’s 64-yarder for Baltimore against Tennessee on October 4, and Little has already missed from 70.
What came next
The Saints did not win again in 1970. Dempsey moved on to Philadelphia in 1971 and also kicked for the Rams, the Houston Oilers and the Buffalo Bills before retiring after the 1979 season. He received the George Halas Award in 1971, given to a player, coach or staff member who overcomes the most adversity to succeed, and he was inducted into the Saints Hall of Fame. He returned to live in New Orleans, and he died there on April 4, 2020, at 73, after contracting COVID-19.
For another kicking milestone from our history series, read about Cameron Dicker’s 57-yard fair catch kick. Justin Tucker also appears in our story on the day he missed his first extra point.
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