Narrowed Goal Posts Lead to 3 Missed Kicks by Adam Vinatieri in 2015 Pro Bowl

The National Football League experimented with extra points and field goals at the 2015 Pro Bowl, and the tinkering certainly had an effect on Indianapolis Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri.

For this year's Pro Bowl, the NFL adjusted some details to make it tougher on kickers. For starters, the league narrowed the goal posts from 18 feet wide to 14 feet wide. Also, extra-point attempts were from 35 yards out.

Fans would expect some kickers around the league to struggle adjusting, but most probably thought Pro Bowl kickers would be able to handle the changes. That wasn't the case Sunday night.

Vinatieri made the Pro Bowl after the best season of his 19-year career, drilling 30 of his 31 field-goal attempts and all 50 of his extra-point tries. He entered the game having made 83.7 percent of field-goal tries in his regular-season career and had missed just 10 extra-point attempts in 19 seasons.

Surprisingly, the tweaks affected him and led to a rough night for the veteran kicker, who played for Team Irvin.

Vinatieri missed not one, but two extra-point attempts in the game.

He also missed a potential game-tying, 38-yard field goal at the end of the third quarter.

Vinatieri did make a 32-yard field goal, a 28-yarder and two extra points, but the three misses really stood out—partly because of how automatic he has been throughout his career.

Here's what Vinatieri had to say on the adjustments made to the kicking game, per The Charlotte Observer's Joe Person:

Some people believe a kicker's job is too easy. If the NFL is looking to make life tougher on kickers, it may have found the solution.