His OCD on full display, Zane Gonzalez still drilled the kick of his life (original) (raw)

One of NBC’s final updates from Tampa on Sunday night was a 40-second video of Washington Commanders kicker Zane Gonzalez repeatedly adjusting his sock, grazing his hair and tapping his helmet to his head before finally slipping it on and lining up for the last kick.

“This is Zane Gonzalez. Not a time for fashion malfunction,” play-by-play man Mike Tirico quipped. “He’s working on his shoe. He’s working on his sock. He’s getting it right. … He was fidgeting with his helmet. Whatever he lined up in that head and that foot, Tress Way put it down, and Gonzalez doinked them to Detroit.”

As the video shifted to a replay of Gonzalez’s 37-yard kick that bounced off the right upright and caromed through to win the first-round playoff game, 23-20, over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, color commentator Cris Collinsworth chimed in and joked: “That may have been the six inches that made the difference — fixing that shoe. That was the six inches right there!”

The video went viral as people offered similar commentary and poked fun at Gonzalez’s pre-kick routine.

What Tirico, Collinsworth and others didn’t recognize was Gonzalez’s rituals had nothing to do with fashion or a desire to be camera-ready. Gonzalez has obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which certain thoughts or fears lead to repetitive behaviors. He has talked about his disorder multiple times, but as he prepared for one of the biggest moments in Washington franchise history on prime-time television, it became fodder.

“If anything, it makes my wife and family more upset than it does with me,” Gonzalez said. “I’m used to it. … Everybody that’s known or seen me kick has seen me do it millions of times. Being on such a big stage on Sunday night, a game-winner, it draws a little bit more attention, I’ve learned. It’s who I am, and it’s what I go through, and I, above everybody else, realize how crazy it looks doing it. I’m aware. But at the same time, you can’t help it.”

Gonzalez’s routine started when he was a teen in the Houston area and Kohl’s Kicking ranked him as the No. 11 high school kicker in the nation in 2013.

“There’s a few things I try to do to keep it as under-the-radar as I can, just understanding, get it done and whatever gets me mentally ready to go on the field, do that,” Gonzalez said. “The helmet thing is literally the last thing I do.”

Many athletes have superstitions and rituals before games or even in games for good luck or to soothe anxiety. Think of baseball players and their myriad equipment adjustments before each pitch, basketball players with a set number of dribbles before a free throw or golfers with a pre-swing waggle.

OCD, however, can consume every facet of a person’s life.

Gonzalez learned of his OCD at a young age. He can still vividly remember being in grade school and trying to draw an “e” — for three hours. The spacing wasn’t just right, so he erased and redrew it again and again and again and again.

“At one point I flipped my desk and freaked out,” he said. “My mom is where I got it from, and she gave me a talking to, like, ‘Hey, you just got to fight this sometimes.’ I didn’t understand it, but over time it’s a little bit better. On the football field, sometimes it acts up a little bit more, and then in my personal life, it’s there — like, I have to touch the bottom of every cup — but I just kind of try to do whatever I can to hide it. It’s just something I’ve learned to live with all the time.”

That is no easy feat playing a position that comes with immense pressure and scrutiny. There is no makeup play for kickers, no unofficial credit for missing a field goal by a few inches. It’s either good or it’s not.

On Sunday, the stakes were higher: Either Gonzalez ends a 19-year drought for postseason wins for Washington or the game goes to overtime with a chance the season ends there.

“I’ve banked a field goal before, but that was the biggest bank shot, I’d say, of my career,” he said. “I really wish it would’ve just went in so I didn’t hear the ‘doink’ stuff. … That one was just a little outside, but I felt pretty confident about it.”

A Cleveland Browns draft pick in 2017, Gonzalez bounced to four other teams before being signed to Washington’s practice squad in November. He hadn’t kicked in an NFL game in three years, partially because of an injury he suffered with the San Francisco 49ers in 2023, and he had only two days of practice reps before making his debut for the Commanders in Week 10 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Then-starter Austin Seibert suffered a hip injury, leaving Washington in a bind again with its kicking operation. Gonzalez was the sixth kicker to join the team since March (Greg Joseph later made it seven) and has remained its unofficial starter.

“This year has been crazy just with the workout circuit,” Gonzalez said. “I had been to probably eight workouts, and my wife was taking me to the airport and picking me up, so a lot of headaches with that. … But I remember getting the call and thinking there’s a chance to play. These guys and the organization made me feel very comfortable, very confident.”

After only a few days of practice to nail down the kicking operation with Way and long snapper Tyler Ott, Gonzalez was flawless in his debut Nov. 10; he made 48- and 41-yard field goals and three extra points.

The Commanders signed Gonzalez to their active roster in early December, shortly after placing Seibert on injured reserve, and have turned to him for all but one game because of a foot injury. The following week, he and Joseph both welcomed their first child on the same day, leaving the team kicker-less for practice.

In seven games, including the playoffs, Gonzalez has made 8 of 10 field goals and all 21 extra-point attempts. He also has been integral to Washington’s strategy on the new dynamic kickoffs.

“We have the most kicks in the league that are returned, and that’s by design,” Coach Dan Quinn said. “That’s also a big part of what he does. … It’s another part of the game that maybe doesn’t show up all the way on the stat sheet, but it’s really important to our field position.”

The Commanders placed an NFL-high 60 percent of their kickoffs in the landing zone and had the most kicks returned by opponents (73) during the regular season.

“Just grateful for all the blessings,” Gonzalez said. “… It’s a journeyman lifestyle. It is tough, but at the end of the day, I’m doing what I love to do.”