Why Browns kicker Dustin Hopkins is confident he’s found a fix for his struggles

NEW ORLEANS — Browns kicker Dustin Hopkins thinks he has it figured out.

Following Sunday's 35-14 loss to the Saints, after Hopkins sent three field goal attempts wide left in the first half, he thinks he figured something out when he came out at halftime to warm up.

"I think hopefully I got my finger on it at halftime today," Hopkins said, "and I can take that into the short week."

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Hopkins missed a 51-yard field goal wide left with 6:50 remaining in the second quarter, a kick that would have pulled the Browns within 14-9.

Then things got really bad for him.

The Browns called on him to try a 32-yard kick with 14 seconds left in the half and he missed it wide left. Saints defensive lineman Payton Turner gave the Browns new life, however, when he was called for a hold.

After incompletions by quarterback Jameis Winston on back-to-back plays, Hopkins came back out for a 27-yard kick and once again he sent it wide left.

"I expect better for my teammates, I expect better for the city of Cleveland," Hopkins said. "It does not feel good being the weak link in a football game, and I was definitely that today."

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Hopkins was Mr. Reliable for the Browns last season after they were forced to move on from fourth-round pick Cade York before his second season even began. They acquired Hopkins from the Chargers and he made 33-of-36 field goals, including all eight of his attempts from 50-plus yards, an outlier for a kicker who made just 15-of-30 from 50-plus prior to arriving in Cleveland.

This year, Hopkins has connected on 14-of-20 field goal attempts and is 4-of-8 from 50-plus yards.

Hopkins has made just seven of his last 12 attempts and has missed all three of his attempts from 50-plus yards in the last five games.

What's confusing to him is he's actually practicing well.

"There are times when you don't hit well in practice and then you just make it happen in the game," Hopkins said, "where this is the first time for several weeks that it's been the opposite."

Hopkins is very process-driven. It's why he sounded confident he was going to come out of this when he talked postgame.

"If I wasn't hitting good at any point in time, then I think I would be reaching and really feeling a certain type of way about it," he said. "And I know it's frustrating that it's not translating to the game, that's the standard is to do well on game day, so I'm not brushing over that. But at the same time, I think I would feel differently about it if I was hitting poorly everywhere as opposed to just, it just wasn't quite translating on game day."

The good news is he truly believes he found something after missing those first-half kicks.

"I put my finger on what the difference was in the game and then warming up (at halftime)," Hopkins said.

The bad news is we won't find out for sure until Thursday night when the Steelers come to Huntington Bank Field. He didn't get a chance to kick in the second half and Hopkins said it himself: the practices have already been good. If he really did figure it out, he'll have to prove it in front of a national TV audience against the Browns' rival, the team currently leading the AFC North after they beat Baltimore on Sunday.

"It's a strange place to be knowing mentally I feel good, but at the same time the swing thoughts just didn't translate from practice to the game," Hopkins said.

One person who believes wholeheartedly in Hopkins is his quarterback, Jameis Winston, who played with Hopkins at Florida State.

"I'm always going to have tremendous faith in him and I trust that he's going to continue to work and get better," Winston said. "He's going to be better for us."

His head coach, Kevin Stefanski, still has faith in the 34-year-old Hopkins, too.

"He needs to make those kicks. He knows that. He's been in this league a long time. He's kicked for a long time," Stefanski said. "I believe that he will fix that issue that he had, and he will be fine."

Hopkins is confident. He just didn't get a chance to show it on Sunday.

"Form-wise, I kind of went into halftime, felt better about where I needed to be," he said, "but it was too late."