ASHBURN, Va. — When you go seven-for-seven on field goals in your first weekend of work for the Washington Commanders, you become a pretty hot topic almost overnight.
Entering the contest against the New York Giants last weekend there was plenty of attention being paid to kicker Austin Seibert, but it wasn’t because of what he had done up to that point, but more about what other Commanders kickers hadn’t done.
Well, after Seibert did what others didn’t seven times to give Washington a 21-18 win over the Giants, it’s no surprise that he was named the NFC Special Teams Player of the Week, another first for the kicker.
“I have not received that before, so yeah, I'll check that off the box. That's [a] really cool honor,” Seibert told WUSA9 in an exclusive conversation Thursday. “But then again, it doesn't happen without [long-snapper] Tyler Ott’s great snaps, and [punter Tress Way’s] great holds. And then a great offensive line blocking for me.”
The NFL world is a wild one at times, and after going through four kickers before Seibert, the experience has come fast, and it's come on heavy. But it’s something the kicker is used to after making the Commanders his fifth NFL team in six years.
“It's been a quick turnaround, obviously, but just super thankful for it,” Seibert said. “Staying ready, going through all the chaos of getting cut and not knowing what's going to happen. And then you just stick to your values and your beliefs and it all worked out. So I'm not complaining.”
The last time Seibert was kicking for an NFL squad for the entirety of a season was in 2019 when he appeared in 16 games for the Cleveland Browns and made 25 of his 29 field goal attempts.
Since then, he’s bounced around a bit, and Washington actually got to see him kick firsthand when the team traveled to New Jersey for a joint practice and preseason game against the New York Jets, who Seibert was with at the time.
There, they saw his "stay ready" approach in person, and it was a performance coach Dan Quinn said earlier in the week that caught the eye of general manager Adam Peters and the front office staff, making Seibert someone who’s been on their radar since at least that weekend.
Following his franchise-record-setting performance on Sunday, Seibert shared a fun story about how he stays ready when not with an NFL squad by kicking at a pine tree near his home.
“The ground you’re kicking on is not great, so there’s really no excuses on (game day) and then it’s easy, because my wife can come over and film some for me so I can study the film and then my daughter gets to do it with me,” said Seibert. “There’s no other way you’d want to do it, I guess. Everyone’s different, but that’s how we do it.”
Speaking with WUSA9, he expanded on that by sharing the origin story of a practice that’s become part of his routine.
“When I was a little kid, I started kicking when I was about 7 years old and my dad had me kick at a tree in our front yard,” Seibert recalls. “I got a lot over here, 50, 60 yards to the pine tree. It's easier with my daughter. I don't have to put her in the car, put her in a car seat and go. It's like she can just come over here with us. I'll set up a little stand for her, she'll kick on her own and then I'll kick myself. We started doing that and I liked it a lot and it just, it worked.”
The Commanders would agree. They’d probably wish if they could that it didn’t take four missed swings at a kicker to land on Seibert, but then, trusting the process is all about getting to the right place even when it takes hitting some bumps in the road to get there. Hitting the big kicks under pressure, like the game-winner Sunday, is something Seibert says is practiced near that pine tree.
“The last kick was a thirty yarder, but I’ve done it before. You can’t make the situation bigger than it is. You’ve just got to go back to your fundamentals and technique and remember why you’re doing all this,” said Seibert. “When you’ve got a daughter and wife in the stands, that’s what you’re doing it for. Just got to think back to that and I just told myself to hit the tree and make the situation smaller.”
If Washington has its way, it’ll be a while before Seibert is kicking at that pine tree again because he’ll be putting up more field goals - and hopefully extra points - for the Commanders.