They say lightning never strikes the same place twice. Footballs, however, may strike the same wire.
On the night the league chastised Al Michaels of Prime Video for saying that a 51-yard field goal attempt by Vikings kicker Will Reichard struck a wire during a game against the Browns in London, another Reichard kick possibly hit a Skycam wire.
The video has been making the rounds of Reichard’s 53-yard attempt late in the first half of a blowout loss to the Chargers, with the question of whether there was indeed ball-to-wire contact.
It’s hard to see the ball strike, if it did. The Skycam (and thus the wire) seemed to be in the vicinity of the ball, and it’s possible (at best) the ball dips downward unnaturally on its way to the goalpost. The characteristic end-over-end spinning of the ball does not change. And while the kick was short, it wasn’t a Flubber-filled (kidding) K ball, because the Vikings rushed to the line for the attempt, preventing a K ball from being utilized. Also, Reichard struck the turf with his foot before hitting the ball, which would have taken something off of the kick.
We’re digging for more. For now, it’s worth mentioning the existence of the question — simply because the percentage chances of it happening twice to the same kicker from the same team in the same month of the same season on the same night the first one was mentioned would start with “0.0" and have a few zeroes after the decimal before a “1".