John Niyo: 'Cold-blooded' Bates scripts perfect ending to Lions' comeback

HOUSTON — Everyone knows about Jake Bates’ leg by now.

But late Sunday night, after the Lions’ kicker had booted another game-winner to cap an improbable comeback and beat his hometown Houston Texans, Bates simply needed a hand.

In the back corner of the visitors’ locker room at NRG Stadium, Bates was struggling to carry all his belongings, what with an equipment bag in one hand, a duffel bag in the other and not one but two game balls cradled in his arms.

One of those came from his head coach, Dan Campbell, while the other was from the NBC “Sunday Night Football” crew after Bates kicked a tying 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 guy whose remarkable backstory is quickly becoming an NFL legend — barely 18 months ago, he was beginning a sales career working for the Acme Brick Company right here in Houston — this is all still a bit much to handle.

Bates couldn’t really remember what he’d said when Campbell singled him out in the locker room celebration on Sunday night. (“I keep blacking out in those moments,” he laughed.) And he had a hard time even finding the words to describe his emotions as he held his poise ... and then held his pose watching that final kick sail just inside the goalpost.

“I really can't because, I mean, I just don't deserve this,” Bates said, shaking his head. “I was a soccer player growing up. I idolized football players in the NFL. And just to be here is surreal. I'm still finding myself kind of pinching myself.”

He was bracing himself after this game, too. Because as soon as he exited the locker room, he was headed for a reunion of sorts with a huge throng of family and friends who were in attendance Sunday night. Bates grew up in Tomball, Texas — a 40-minute drive north from downtown Houston — and all week, he’d heard from his high school friends who are now Texans season-ticket holders.

“Even going to the game today, I was still getting friends (texting), ‘Hey, I'm gonna be there,’” Bates said.

But what they all got to witness Sunday, on a night where Jared Goff threw a career-worst five interceptions and Detroit found itself in a 23-7 halftime hole, was something Lions fans are quickly getting used to this fall. The self-belief that runs through this team, imbued by the head coach and embodied in all sorts of ways on the field, also extends to a kicker who came out of nowhere this spring and now has a small living room that's practically littered with souvenirs.

"They're kind of just stacked on the shelf," Bates said of his growing game-ball collection. "Maybe one of these days, I'll figure something out nice for them."

'He's wired right'

But who would've figured this, really? This was Bates’ second game-winning kick in the last month — his 44-yarder with 15 seconds left beat the division-rival Vikings in Minnesota — and the 25-year-old rookie is still perfect on the season, making all 14 of his field-goal attempts, including three from 50-plus yards.

Not bad for a guy who joined his high school football team as a joke his senior year. He didn’t give college football a try until he was a junior, and even then he never actually tried 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 bricks, so to speak. And a 64-yard field goal at Ford Field in his UFL debut with the Michigan Panthers back in March put him on the Lions’ scouting radar.

It didn’t take long in training camp for the coaches and front office to decide “that he’s wired right,” as general manager Brad Holmes put it. And if you ask his teammates now what they expect when Bates lines up for an attempt, they’ll all tell you the same thing.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence in him,” Goff said after Sunday night’s comeback win. “He’s kicking it as well as anyone in the league right now. … It’s really cool for a guy that’s that young, with that amount of experience, to walk out there and — cold-blooded, twice now, on the road — knock ‘em both down.”

Campbell’s thoughts at the end of Sunday night’s emotional rollercoaster ride immediately went back to the Lions’ practice on Thursday back in Allen Park. He put his players through an end-of-game situation where the first-team offense had the ball at its own 40-yard line with six seconds left and one timeout, needing only a field goal to win. Goff completed a pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown to get the ball to the opposing 43, Campbell stopped the clock with 1 second left, and out went Bates and the field-goal team to try a 61-yarder.

“And he nailed it,” Campbell recalled Sunday. “This was outside, slight wind in his face. And, man, you could just feel the team, as well as all of us, there's just a 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 felt like he was going to make it, you know? And he did. He stepped up and nailed it.”

Bates credits his faith for keeping him calm in those moments, and the rest of the kicking team — specifically his holder, Jack Fox, and long-snapper Hogan Hatten, a fellow rookie — for helping him make it look easier than it is. Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn, who already has an NFL-record 11 50-yard makes this season, missed a 58-yard yarder after a high snap on the Texans’ final possession to help set the stage for Bates' heroics.

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

But he also leans on a mental approach that’s growing stronger by the day, it seems. Whether it’s a chip-shot attempt in the first quarter, or a pressure-packed kick like the ones he faced Sunday, he reminds himself: “Don't change anything. Don't make the moment bigger than it needs to be.”

Not until the moments after, at least. Just as soon as that winning kick landed, Bates took off running with his arms raised in celebration and his teammates giving chase as they poured onto the field. Once they’d caught him, a few of them put him on their shoulders.

“I've never been hoisted like that,” he said with a big grin. “That was a cool moment.”

And though “it almost feels like it’s too scripted, too good to be true,” he added, that extra baggage he was carrying after the game was a reminder it’s not.

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