Interview: Buffalo Bills K Rian Lindell

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Buffalo Bills kicker Rian Lindell set a team record by kicking his 18th straight field goal yesterday. And he did it in style, booting a 51-yarder just as a light snow began falling on Ralph Wilson Stadium (note: the previous record of 17 consecutive FGs was held by Steve Christie). At the time, the kick gave the Bills a 24-7 lead and they went on to beat the Miami Dolphins 38-17 to keep their AFC Wild Card playoff hopes alive. Rian has been one of the NFL’s best kickers this season, hitting on 88% of his field goal attempts so far. I caught-up with Rian in the Bills locker room after the game. Here’s part of our conversation:

DAVID: Rian, first of all congrats on the win. But also congrats on setting a team record — 18 straight field goals!

RIAN: Thank you. We came to play today and played pretty well. And it was nice to hit that one (kick) and to add to our lead at the time. It would be nice to say 19 (note: Rian unfortunately missed his next kick) but, oh well. It was a win and I guess if you’re going to miss, miss in a win.

DAVID: And it was really a must-win game in a situation when certainly you couldn’t afford to look ahead.

RIAN: Yeah, I think if we don’t come away with a win in this one, it’s over. I don’t know about mathematically or whatever, but they’re all big games. We knew Miami was better than an 0-12 team. They’ve lost a lot of close games and even the game we played down there earlier we had to battle to come back and win that one. It’s a testament to the guys on this team and the coaches made sure we were focusing on this game. And I think the guys understood that. We couldn’t look ahead. And that has nothing to do with Miami, but to lose at this point by looking ahead — we knew we needed to take care of business here first.

DAVID: It’s an awesome feeling in this locker room to be in the middle of the playoff race. It’s been a dry spell for this team as far as the playoffs.

RIAN: It’s nice. It’s definitely nicer than showing up and playing for pride or whatever. We’ll go home now and see how Cleveland’s doing and how Tennessee’s doing. It’s fun to be involved in that.

DAVID: You’ve been such a huge part of this team’s success this year and keeping the Bills in the playoff race this late in the season. Your kicking and the special teams play has been outstanding.

RIAN: We take special teams very seriously around here. When they look at bringing a guy in here, they look at how he does on special teams as well. Some teams, perhaps, get their offense and defense squared away and then everybody left over, they make a special teams unit out of them. Here, we take it as a third of the team and Coach Jauron gives Bobby (April, special teams coach) a lot of time to work on it — meeting time and practice time.

DAVID: Watching last week’s game against the Redskins, Rian. You practically score all the team’s points and then the game-winner in a clutch situation at the end with the rain falling. Does kicking in those pressure situations come naturally for you or have you built a sort of resistance to that pressure?

RIAN: You kind of get used to it because they’re all big kicks — obviously for the team or they wouldn’t send me out there, but also for me, personally, because I’ve been trying to keep my job for eight years now (laughs). So every kick is big. I don’t know what I have now (thinking) 24 attempts and I’ve made 21 of those. And not that field goal percentage is everything (note: Rian led the NFL in FG% coming into this game). So they’re all big and I think I’ve done a much better job over the past couple years of having my game kicks feel like practice kicks. I go out, look down, see Brian’s (Moorman, punter and holder) fingers there and know that it’s just a matter of me kicking. And the other stuff that enters your mind — the stuff that entered my mind my first couple of years in the league — just doesn’t come in there anymore. It’s just a matter of hitting a good ball.

See also my interview with Bills LB Keith Ellison and Gameday blog.

If you want to vote for Rian to represent the Bills on the AFC Pro Bowl roster in February, just click here to vote at nfl.com/probowl/ballot. There are only a couple days left to vote so get to it.