How Commanders kicker Zane Gonzalez turned OCD into his ‘superpower’

Commanders kicker Zane Gonzalez had no idea how closely the NBC broadcast followed him in the final four minutes of Washington’s win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last Sunday. But the NFL world scrutinized his every move, and viewers witnessed how closely Gonzalez’s kick (off the bar!?!) would go through the uprights.

He simply followed his normal routine to prepare to kick. Gonzalez has obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which he calls his “superpower” when he kicks.

As quarterback Jayden Daniels led an impressive four-minute drive, the final moments passed quickly and Gonzalez knew it would be necessary to kick the game-winning goal. He fixed his sock, did a few practice kicks, and then fixed it again. And although he normally put on his helmet before entering the field, he ran out of time. On his way to prepare for the kick, he repeatedly touched his hair and began putting on his helmet, before repeating the process three times.

Some confused it with vanity or superstition. But this has been his routine since seventh grade: the sock, the hair, the helmet. It’s a ritual rooted in his OCD.

“I would say it’s pretty much my typical routine. A lot of people never see it, just because I know it looks a little weird. So I try to make it as unnoticed as possible,” Gonzalez said. FOX Sports. “But obviously, being on a bigger stage, a bigger game and all that kind of stuff, it stood out a little more. But for me, it was just making sure I was mentally and physically prepared to play.”

He kicked the ball and earned Washington’s first playoff victory in nearly 7,000 days.

Gonzalez does his pre-kick routine, in part because he is fighting intrusive thoughts that may arise before kicks.

“Oh no, the world is going to end if this doesn’t happen,” Gonzalez said.

He compared it to golfers preparing for a shot or MLB players preparing for an at-bat. Check out golfer Brian Harman, known for his move, a pre-shot routine to loosen your arms, slow down your thinking and prepare for the shot. Look at retired Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garcíaparra, who ritually put on his gloves and rocked back and forth in the batter’s box before waiting for a pitch.

Every time.

“To me, they’re good cues to say, ‘Hey, stay here, fix your helmet, you’re about to kick the ball.’ It kind of gives you those little details to be more on your game,” Gonzalez said. “For me, that’s been tremendous… It gives you the ability to refocus on each moment within that routine.”

Gonzalez, 29, who joined Washington in November following an injury to starter Austin Seibert, has played for six different franchises. His NFL career began with the Browns, who drafted him in the seventh round in 2017 out of Arizona State. In seven games this year (including the postseason), he has made eight of 10 field goal attempts and 21 of 21 extra points. And he heads to the NFC divisional round against the Lions on Saturday.

It’s fitting that he helped the Commanders get through a playoff draft, because before replacing Seibert, he hadn’t attempted an NFL kick since December 2021 with the Panthers. González suffered a groin injury where the muscle tore from the bone, requiring surgery. And after fully recovering from the injury, he had an emergency appendectomy.

“It was one thing after another,” his father, Joseph Gonzalez, told FOX Sports. “This is where the positive side of OCD comes in: that perfection. It has to be a certain way. Everything is planned. You set goals for yourself and you strive to achieve those goals and more.”

Every day, while waiting for an NFL team to call, González would get up at 6 a.m. to run. He would spend two to three hours at the local high school working on his kicking and field goal technique. When he finally got the call from Washington, he was ready to join the Commanders’ practice squad. And when he was promoted, he was ready to take the starting job.

Few people outside the team knew that González has OCD when he went to take the kick on Sunday. The response, at first, was not particularly sensitive, and the stations and social networks made fun of him. That bothered his father and his wife, but González says it didn’t bother him. “I kick for a living; you learn to have a thicker skin,” he said. González tries to focus on the positive. Heard from children, teens, and adults who have OCD, or who have a loved one with OCD.

That sparked a conversation and a greater understanding of the disorder.

“It’s great to see the reaction and know that there are other people who suffer too,” Gonzalez said. “You feel a little alone. I’m very aware of what it looks like. It seems ridiculous. I’m very aware and aware of what it looks like. But just being able to see other people I can relate and support and just understand that, ‘Hey, that’s what It’s, it’s just another tic.’… I feel like it’s relatively normal.”

That doesn’t mean there aren’t days when González struggles. Spend more time washing dishes and brushing your teeth. At night, he has to turn off the lights several times. You can’t blow your nose just once. You can’t lift a cup without touching the bottom.

On the day of his playoff debut, he had a relaxing morning in Tampa: a long walk in the warm weather, Sunday Mass and team meetings. It was an easy day. But on Tuesday, the day of our phone call, González laughed about the difficulties getting to work.

It was early in the morning and his wife and newborn baby were still sleeping. He left the house, closing the back door and then the front door.

“In my head, I think, OK, ‘Did I close the back door?’ And then at that point, you have to do it three times, or whatever number I have in my head, and I’ll be walking back and forth. And it’s kind of funny, because the dogs are like, ‘Okay, what is it?’ What are you doing?'” Gonzalez said.

Now you can laugh about it. In college, he felt more aware of it. But there are frustrating days, without a doubt.

“That’s where it gets a little tedious. When I think, ‘Okay, why can’t I just lock everything once and go out and have that peace of mind? Why is something constantly happening?’ And that’s where it gets a little triggering sometimes, when I’m upset and I’m like, okay, this gets a little annoying sometimes.”

Although he is humble about his career, González has come a long way.

“When he was a child it was much worse,” his father said. “If you ever walked into his room in elementary school, everything was in perfect order. If you walked in and rearranged his shoes a little bit, like moving them an inch to the side, he’d notice right off the bat, and he’d get mad, and Then he put everything back together. Sometimes he got irritated. As a father, you just have to be patient.

That’s also what makes his ability to complete field goals so impressive. There’s a play clock, an NFL audience (in the stadium and on the broadcast), and the game on the line. While it may seem daunting to have to manage OCD in such a pressurized environment (with a literal countdown), González actually embraces the game clock and the pace of the game. In fact, he said sometimes the speed prevents him from thinking too much.

“There’s nothing, nothing better than a big, deep breath that can calm your nerves, calm everything down, stabilize your mind and focus on what you’re about to do in those five seconds of kicking the field goal,” he said. saying.

It took Gonzalez time to learn how to handle the process. Joseph said Zane specifically chose Arizona State because of the great setting. ASU Stadium seats nearly 54,000 fans, not far from Commanders Stadium (62,000).

“If the opportunity arose to enter the NFL, he would already have it in his experience how to handle high-pressure situations,” Joseph said. “He always planned things a certain way so he could be successful.”

González has always had a plan. Even in high school, he told his father he would kick in college and win the Lou Groza Award, given to the best kicker in college football. And that’s exactly what Zane did. On the soccer field he works with his OCD, not against it.

“It makes me who I am,” Gonzalez said. “It makes me feel better.”

Before joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.

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