The New Orleans are 63 days away from their season opener against the Arizona Cardinals. That's one day for every yard of Tom Dempsey's record breaking field goal in 1970.
60-yard field goals have become more common, though still notable, in modern NFL. More than half a century later, however, you still don't see many people connect from 63 yards away.
Dempsey's record stood for over 40 years before he was replaced atop the leaderboards. It's a testament of how special this moment was.
Tom Dempsey put the Saints atop the record books for four decades
When Dempsey made that field goal, it was unheard of for a kicker to make a field goal from more than 60 yards away. New Orleans was probably laughed at for even trotting him out there, but it was the closing seconds of the game. The previous record was 56 yards. Dempsey smashed that by seven yards.
The feat had never been done before and it wouldn't be done again until 1984. It wasn't until 1998 that another kicker made a 63 yarder. Then Matt Prater finally pushed Dempsey off the top spot with 64-yard field goal in 2013.
Let's do the math. It took 14 years for a kicker to get within 3 yards of Dempsey's record, 28 years for someone to tie his record and 43 years before someone finally dethroned Dempsey for the longest field goal of all time. To this day, only three kickers have made a field goal longer than 63 yards.
Dempsey was far from a one-kick wonder. Dempsey only made a one field goal from beyond 60 yards in his career. That's understandably the highlight of his NFL run, but Dempsey had the longest field goal of the year in each of his first three seasons.
Through the years, the Saints have been blessed with a few strong-legged kickers. Dempsey was obviously the first kicker to knock one in from that distance. The Saints later drafted Morten Anderson, who went on to be the NFL's leading scorer for 11 years after he retired. He made a field goal from 60 yards in 1991.
Wil Lutz made a 60 yard field goal in 2022, and it wasn't even the longest field goal in the league that year. The league has changed a lot since Dempsey set the record.