Blair Walsh is not hung up on the 27-yard field goal he missed wide left with 22 seconds left in the Vikings’ 10-9 wild-card playoff loss to Seattle last January.
“My common message to [those who have reached out to him] is it’s one moment,” Walsh told reporters after Wednesday’s OTA session. “It won’t define me.”
Walsh was asked if he tries to block out the memory of the missed field or if he uses it as motivation.
“A little bit of both,” he said, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune‘s Mark Craig. “I’m way past the point of being upset about it or, you know, to the point where it bothers you like that. It’s something I’ve already dealt with and gone through. On a day-to-day basis, no, I don’t think about it. I really don’t use it like that.”
“That initial month or so period, I definitely looked at it as motivation for me. But, like I said before, I had a good year. That was enough motivation for me going into this year.”
It’s tough to argue that Walsh didn’t have a good year. He made 34 of 39 field goal attempts during the regular season and was 3 for 3 before missing the last kick against the Seahawks at TCF Bank Stadium.
Fortunately for Walsh, the Vikings move inside to new U.S. Bank Stadium this year, which he’s happy about.
“It’s always going to be easier indoors,” he said. “I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it’s easier to kick at TCF than it is inside. It’s just you can take the elements out of it and focus on your form and your craft. You can forget about, ‘Hey, man, it’s minus-10 out today.’ You get to go in there and act like it’s a normal day outside.”
Walsh made 13 of 14 field goal attempts indoors during the regular season compared to 21 of 25 outdoors.
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