The Tales of Adam Vinatieri, the NFL’s Forrest Gump

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Updated: October 24, 2016

Someday, Adam Vinatieri may tell this story to a perfect stranger while sitting on a bench waiting for a bus, eating from a box of chocolates as a white feather floats in the breeze.

Vinatieri has floated through more than two decades in the NFL, finding himself in the middle of history time and again, and often creating it. It happened again Sunday when Vinatieri kicked two field goals in the Indianapolis Colts’ 34-26 victory over the Tennessee Titans, setting a record of 43 consecutive field goals without a miss.

Looking back, his story seems more like a movie than a career.

It began with an introduction.

Hello, my name is Adam. Adam Vinatieri.

It was 1996, and the man shaking his hand was an intimidating figure with blue eyes that could look right through you. Vinatieri was a 23-year-old from Yankton, South Dakota, who had joined the New England Patriots as an undrafted free agent. The year before, he had kicked for the Amsterdam Admirals in the World League of American Football.

Now he was trying to beat out a 17-year veteran and impress this man who had a pair of Super Bowl rings and had been named Coach of the Year twice.

Bill Parcells didn’t seem to have much use for a rookie kicker. He kept putting Vinatieri on the spot. “If Vinatieri makes this kick, the team doesn’t have to do conditioning,” Parcells would announce during a training camp practice. “If he misses it, we’re doing double.”

Then, when Vinatieri was about to try a field goal, Parcells would stand right in front of him so he couldn’t kick. Meekly, politely, Vinatieri would ask him to move.

The night before the Patriots’ final preseason game that year, Parcells told Vinatieri he would be taking all of the kicks the next day. “I’m going to see if you got what it takes or if you are going to pack up your s–t and get out of here,” Parcells told him.

He kicked well in that preseason game. And for some years afterward.

Vinatieri has endured to the point, where at the age of 43, he is the oldest player in the National Football League.

He has survived two meniscus surgeries, a labrum surgery on his kicking leg, a broken bone in his foot, a pars fracture in his lower back and a broken finger.

He has answered to seven special teams coaches. He has worked with six long snappers and six holders, plus a handful of short term fill-ins.

He has been around so long that he remembers having a ball boy named Zak DeOssie, whose father, Steve, was Vinatieri’s long snapper. Zak is a 10-year NFL veteran now.

He was teammates with Dave Meggett—and with Meggett’s son, Davin Meggett.

He once played in a 30-team, six-division league that didn’t have games on Thursday nights.

Twenty-one teams play in stadiums that did not exist when he was a rookie.

Now, on team charters, he gets a first-class seat not far from where Colts owner Jim Irsay sits. His tenure means he can choose the music in the weight room. Sometimes, he’ll turn off Drake and play Frank Sinatra.

Who knows if Vinatieri would have been around for all of this if not for Parcells?

“Playing for him helped me develop my mindset,” Vinatieri said. “I learned I had to work my butt off every day to stay on the team. It helped me understand the realism of football.”

Years later, that nice man was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Herschel Walker once set a world record in the 55-meter dash, with a time of 6.11. Twenty years ago, he was nearing the end of his career but was still considered one of the fastest players in the NFL.

In a December game at Texas Stadium, Walker took Vinatieri’s short kickoff down the left sideline and ran straight past every man on the Patriots kick coverage team. He was a couple steps past Vinatieri. Somehow, Vinatieri summoned the burst to run down Walker from behind, preventing a touchdown. It was an amazing, logic-defying play.

In the locker room afterward, Parcells praised him and said, “Things will change in the locker room for you. You are more than just a kicker now.”

At the time, Vinatieri didn’t know what Parcells was talking about.

He knows now.

Vinatieri learned in order to thrive, he had to do more than just what was expected. He had to go beyond the norms, do more, try harder, never lose focus.

All of these years later, Vinatieri still is more than just a kicker. In the offseason, when teammates are running gassers, he is not expected to join them. But he does join them. And he runs hard.

In the weight room, he lifts with cornerbacks, safeties and linebackers. The other day, punter Pat McAfee saw him bench press 100-pound dumbbells eight times.

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to go in the weight room and have the young guys say, ‘There’s old Adam, doing half as much weight,'” he said.

Early in his career, Vinatieri learned the importance of being all-in. The lesson was driven home by a young head coach whose hair color was more pepper than salt. The coach was enthusiastic, energetic and invariably positive.

Young Pete Carroll wanted to know if his Patriots were completely committed to the team. One day, Carroll told the team everyone had to wear pads in their pants for practice. As a kicker, Vinatieri thought surely he was exempt, and he did not wear the pads.

Carroll fined Vinatieri—and chewed him out. It was the only time in Vinatieri’s career he was fined.

Carroll was a flop in New England, but he went on to become one of only three men who won a college football national championship and a Super Bowl. From then on, if Carroll told his players to stay on the path and off the grass, that’s what Vinatieri did. Vinatieri became a good soldier.

It’s not really hard. You just make your bed real neat, remember to stand up straight and always answer every question with, ‘Yes, drill sergeant!’

Fifteen years ago, Vinatieri found himself in a movie theater with his Patriots teammates, watching Ice, the true story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 trans-Antarctic expedition. Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, became trapped in ice and went down in the Weddell Sea. The crew was left on an ice floe. For nearly two years, the men were stranded. And despite unspeakable hardships, all 28 of them survived.

How did they do it? They worked as a team, they followed Shackleton’s lead and they each did their job.

Vinatieri and his teammates were bussed to that movie theater by their coach, who wanted to make a point about how a group of men can overcome almost anything if individuals understand their roles, the importance of teamwork and the big picture. It resonated with his kicker.

This coach was different. He had been fired from his first head coaching job. He didn’t smile much, and there was no pretense about him. Vinatieri had to really pay attention when he spoke, and when he did, it seemed like he was always learning something.

Bill Belichick made sure Vinatieri understood he needed to be ready for anything. “Make sure you have shoes that work, no matter what the field is like,” Belichick once told him.

To this day, Vinatieri shows up at every game with four pairs of shoes—two with normal, molded cleats for his kicking foot, separate plant-foot shoes, a pair with longer cleats for grass and a shoe with a bottom for turf.

Momma always said there is an awful lot you can tell about a person by their shoes. Where they go, where they been. I’ve worn lots of shoes.

In Belichick’s first year with the Patriots, he used a sixth-round pick on a skinny quarterback from Michigan. Vinatieri remembers seeing Tom Brady the first time and thinking, “He’s not that physically fit.”

Then he saw him in a game, and he formed another opinion. “He gets out there, things don’t bother him,” Vinatieri said. “He’s so good under pressure, so cool, one of the coolest dudes I’ve ever met.”

In that way, they could have been brothers.

“There are people out there who love pressure, excel under pressure,” Vinatieri said. “And there are people who crack under pressure. You have a guy like Mariano Rivera. I think he’s the best closer of all time. He would come in and the game was over. When Tiger Woods was on, he would just come through under pressure. Michael Jordan—when a …

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