“Cold-blooded” Bates plans the perfect ending to the Lions’ comeback

by Junna Base November 11, 2024

Houston — Everyone knows Jake Bates’ leg by now.

But late Sunday night, after the Lions’ kicker hit another game-winning shot to cap an improbable comeback and beat his hometown Houston Texans, Bates just needed help.

In the back corner of the visitors’ locker room at NRG Stadium, Bates struggled to carry all of his belongings, with a gear bag in one hand, a duffel bag in the other and two game balls in his arms.

One came from his head coach Dan Campbell, the other from the NBC “Sunday Night Football” crew, after Bates kicked a game-winning 58-yard field goal late in the fourth quarter – the third-longest kick in franchise history . and then drilled a 52-yarder as time expired to win it.

And for a man whose remarkable backstory is quickly becoming an NFL legend – barely 18 months ago, he began a sales career here in Houston with Acme Brick Company – it’s all still a bit too much to handle.

Bates couldn’t really remember what he said when Campbell singled him out during the locker room celebration on Sunday night. (“I pass out all the time in these moments,” he laughed.) And he had a hard time finding the words to describe his feelings as he maintained his posture and then maintained his pose as he watched, like the last one Shot sailed just past the goal post.

“I really can’t because I just don’t deserve this,” Bates said, shaking his head. “Growing up, I was a soccer player. I idolized football players in the NFL. And just being here is surreal. I still find myself pinching myself.”

He also prepared after this game. Because as soon as he left the locker room, he was on his way to a reunion of sorts with a large crowd of family and friends in attendance Sunday night.

Bates grew up in Tomball, Texas — a 40-minute drive north of downtown Houston — and had been hearing all week from his high school friends who are now Texans season ticket holders.

“Even when I went to the game today, I still had friends (texting me) saying, ‘Hey, I’ll be there,'” Bates said.

But what they all saw on Sunday, a night in which Jared Goff threw a career-worst five interceptions and Detroit found itself down 23-7 at halftime, is something Lions fans are quickly getting used to this fall. This was Bates’ second game-winning kick in the last month – his 44-yarder beat the division rival Vikings in Minnesota with 15 seconds left – and the 25-year-old rookie is still perfect this season, having made all 14 of his field goals. Attempts, including three from over 50 yards.

“It’s wired right.”

Not bad for a guy who played football for fun as a high school student. He didn’t try college football until he was a junior, and even then he never attempted a field goal in a game. (Bates was just a kickoff specialist at Texas State and Arkansas.) A brief NFL tryout last summer — with the Texans, of all teams — kept him from hitting the rocks, so to speak. And a 64-yard field goal at Ford Field in his UFL debut with the Michigan Panthers in March put him on the Lions’ radar.

It didn’t take long in training camp and the preseason for the coaches and front office to conclude, as general manager Brad Holmes said, “that he’s on the right track.” And if you ask his teammates now what they expect when Bates goes up for a try, they’ll all tell you the same thing.

“I have a lot of confidence in him,” Goff said after Sunday night’s comeback win. “He’s hitting as well as anyone in the league right now. … It’s really cool for such a young guy with so much experience to go out there and — twice now in cold blood — blow them both away.”

At the end of Sunday night’s emotional rollercoaster, Campbell’s thoughts immediately went back to Thursday’s Lions practice at Allen Park. He put the team in a game-ending situation where the first-team offense had the ball at its own 40-yard line with six seconds left and a timeout and only needed a field goal. Goff completed a pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown to bring the ball to the opponent’s 43-yard line, Campbell stopped the clock with one second left, and Bates and the field goal team went out to make it 61. Yarder to win.

“And he did it,” Campbell recalled Sunday. “It was outside, light wind in his face. And man, you could just feel that the team and all of us just had confidence. That was big. So it was the first thing I thought of when we got there. … I just felt good about it. I just had a feeling he was going to make it, you know? And he did. He went for it and did it.”

Bates credits the rest of the kicking staff — especially fellow rookie long snapper Jack Fox and fellow rookie long snapper Jack Fox — for helping him make it look easier than it is.

“I mean, Jack has been doing it at the highest level for a number of years and Hogan and I want to get to where he is,” Bates said. “But to be in a room with these two guys who take their craft so seriously – they care about it, they want to do it well and they want me to do it well – that’s a really good feeling.”

But he also seems to rely on a mental approach that gets stronger every day. Whether it’s a chip shot attempt in the first quarter or a powerful kick like Sunday, he remembers: “Don’t change anything. Don’t make the moment bigger than it needs to be.”

At least not until shortly afterwards. As soon as that game-winning kick was landed, Bates ran with his arms raised in celebration as his teammates streamed onto the field in pursuit. After they caught him, some of them put him on their shoulders.

“I’ve never been picked up like that before,” he said. “That was a cool moment.”

And while “it almost seems like it’s too scripted, too good to be true,” he said, the extra baggage he was carrying after the game reminded him that’s not the case.

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