When Matt Gay's 54-yard field goal attempt sailed wide left on Sunday, the Colts kicker went to the bench yelling in frustration. After a few moments, quarterback Anthony Richardson and defensive tackle DeForest Buckner walked over to him, giving him pats on the back and words of encouragement.
With his miss on Sunday, Gay is now 0-for-2 on field goal attempts of at least 50 yards; in the Colts' Week 2 loss to the Green Bay Packers, Gay missed a 50-yard field goal in the fourth quarter. Gay has made the other three field goals he has attempted so far this season, but none have been longer than 35 yards.
No one in the Colts has lost any faith in him.
"Matt's our kicker," head coach Shane Steichen said on Monday. "He's been doing it for a long time. Obviously, he missed the kick yesterday and he knows he's got to make those, but he is our kicker."
"I am hitting the ball well, it's coming off my foot, I just need to tweak a couple things here and there and those balls are going to go in," Gay, in his sixth year in the NFL, said on Monday.
Gay was inactive for the Colts' season opener against the Houston Texans due a hernia, but said he feels like he's back to full health. Gay also said his misses haven't been due to mechanical issue – his kick on Sunday came straight off his foot, it just started out left, he said.
What Gay is struggling right now isn't physical – it's mental.
"I think the theme is just not trusting my line," Gay said. "I have a game plan, I make all my kicks in warmups and then you get there and I think you've got to trust your target line and you've just got to bang it to that spot...pick your target, commit to it and go for it."
Every time Gay goes out to kick the football, as he's setting up, he chooses a target behind the goalpost that he wants to hit the ball to. That forms his target line. It's the same process for every kick, whether it's an extra point or a field goal.
"Try to bang the ball instead of place it, hit it to your spot, hit it to your target as opposed to just trying to place it in," Gay explained.
"Kicking is very, very mental," Gay added. "(It's about) being confident in your ability and, again, confident in your process and your target line, and just trusting it."
Gay, and the rest of the Colts, have good reason to trust in the kicker's abilities. In the first five years of his NFL career, Gay converted 134 of 156 field goal attempts. From 2020-2023, Gay was 20-of-28 on 50+ yard kicks, for 11th best among NFL kickers with at least 20 attempts from 50 yards or more.
"I have been very good from 50+ in my career, and I have full confidence going forward that I can make these kicks," Gay said. "I've shown that I can do it, I know I can do it."
