The Detroit Lions have had a busy offseason.
Fresh off their first division title in three decades and reaching the conference championship game, the front office has added the likes of DJ Reader, Carlton Davis, Amik Robertson, Kevin Zeitler, and Marcus Davenport, along with a promising rookie class led by Terrion Arnold and Ennis Rakestraw.
But this spring, football fans at Ford Field were starting to lead the charge for Detroit to add another player to its roster. Now, the Lions have signed All-UFL kicker Jake Bates to a two-year contract.
The ride of how we got here in less than three months is a wild one.
In the Panthers’ opening game of the inaugural UFL season, they called on Bates – who hadn’t kicked a field goal in-game since high school, to attempt a game-winner from 64 yards. He hit it, twice (the first kick was iced). In fact, Bates hit all six of his attempts in the first four games of the season for Michigan, which came from an average distance of more than 54 yards.
It’s worth noting that three of the four outings came from the friendly, dome-constructed confines of Ford Field. And, in light of the Lions’ well-documented, teetering on allergic reaction to utilizing the placekicker position in recent years, Bates’ performance was quickly becoming the talk of the town.
The whole situation likely came as a surprise to Bates, who entered the season for the Panthers unsure weeks prior whether he’d be playing football or working his usual spring gig.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be working my job selling bricks or if I was going to be able to play football,” Bates shared with the media after hitting the 64 yard walk-off in the season opener. “I feel like I got that sense of relief once we got to training camp. It was like, ‘okay this is happening, I’m with the team,’ and getting the first game out of the way and getting a W feels good.”
Bates finished the regular season going 17 of 22, with four of the five misses coming on the road in outdoor conditions. His 64 yard game-winner against St. Louis would not be matched, and remains the longest made field goal in spring football history. By the time the Panthers played their final home game of the season – which, again, was less than two months since the season opener, Bates was the player on the team with a devoted fan club in the stands at Ford Field. At the end of the ten game season, Bates had gone from a relative unknown to the most discussed kicker in the league, earning him the honor of being nominated to the All-UFL team.
Recalling the moment that shot his teammate into local stardom in a matter of minutes, EJ Perry, who started at quarterback for the Panthers until suffering a season-ending hamstring injury, spoke with the media postgame about the game-ending sequence in the season opener, “Jake came over to me and said, ‘Get me to the 45-yard line.’ And I said, ‘OK.’ And I walked away.”
Perry, understandably, was skeptical.
“I went over to the O-line and said, ‘We’ve got to get to the 35-yard line,’ not really believing him or at least wanting to put the fate of the win in the hands of a 63-yard field goal at the time.”
Of course, the rest is history. Before the season was over, fans could find videos of Bates hitting the mark from 7o yards at team practices. The voices to make him a Lions were only growing louder, and the Panthers found themselves managing the attention Bates was starting to receive from NFL teams. In an interview with Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press in early April, head coach Mike Nolan addressed the issue of entities from the NFL reaching out to Bates during the UFL season.
“Outsiders don’t touch our players too much during the season. With Jake, somehow some of them are trying to make efforts to do that, to be honest with you, and hopefully, that backs off a little bit because that’s not — they’re not supposed to do that.”
NFL teams are allowed to contact UFL teams about their players, but cannot sign UFL players until after the UFL season. NFL teams are also not allowed to contact players under contract with the UFL or discuss that player with their agent. When the Panthers season ended after suffering a 31-18 loss to the eventual three-peat champion Birmingham Stallions in the conference title game, Bates was quickly lined up to visit with the Lions, Packers, and Commanders for a workout. To the relief of Detroit sports fans, the Texas native elected to return to the city where he became the talk of spring football.
Now the question shifts to whether Bates will win the starting job in Detroit. The incumbent at the position, Michael Badgley, didn’t emerge as the starter for the Lions until Week 15 of last season – but proved to be a more than serviceable option when presented with opportunities. However, fans will remember that head coach Dan Campbell notably elected to pass on multiple field goal attempts in the NFCCG, save for a chip-in from 21 yards. Badgley would go a perfect 7-7 in the five games he saw action last season. To add to the competition, Detroit also signed former Michigan kicker James Turner to the roster earlier this spring.
The Lions have made it clear that shoring up the areas that held them back from reaching the Super Bowl is a point of emphasis this offseason. Now, Jake Bates enters a kicking unit that will be discussed similarly, albeit to a lesser degree, to the revamped cornerback room: a piece of the puzzle that could make the difference in whether this team is fighting for the Lombardi trophy in February.
