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Football Hall of Fame kicker Adam Vinatieri sets world record
At 53-years-old, 4-time Super Bowl champion Adam Vinatieri is still setting field goal records. The 2004 NFL scoring leader and Class of 2026 Football Hall of Fame inductee just set a world record for the highest altitude field goal ever kicked.
For this feat, Adam Vinatieri found himself atop the Jungfraujoch, aka the ‘Top of Europe,’ kicking his record-setting field goal with the Swiss Alps in the background while standing at 11,332 feet above sea level (3,454 meters).
NFL Legend Adam Vinatieri Sets World Record For Highest Field Goal Ever Made
The New England Patriots will face off against the Detroit Lions in Munich, Germany on November 15th (Week 10). Leading up to that matchup, the team sent over the greatest kicker in franchise history, arguably in NFL history, to kick a field goal at ‘The Top of Europe’ on the Jungfraujoch which is part of the UNESCO Jungfrau-Aletsch World Heritage Site and a popular destination in the Swiss Alps.
Why there? Well, according to a release from the Patriots, there are a ton of bandwagon German fans in the area. They wrote “this is partly because many Germans ‘grew up’ with the Patriots dynasty in the early 2000s, when three of the team’s six Super Bowls were won in just four years.” Did they really need to call out all of Germany as only rooting for team that win? Branding them bandwagon fans ahead of the Week 10 matchup? I’d think not.
Here is Adam Vinatieri, who kicked for the New England Patriots between 1996-2005 before moving to the Indianapolis Colts from 2006-2019, who holds the record for the most points scored in NFL history (2,673), setting a new world record for the highest altitude field goal ever made at 11,332 feet above sea level:
.@adamvinatieri officially holds the Guinness World Record for the highest altitude field goal kick 🦵🙌
→ https://t.co/ssu3cepnxO pic.twitter.com/cSSPVd9Ty3
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) September 22, 2026
This peak is part of the UNESCO Jungfrau-Aletsch World Heritage Site and is accessible via the Jungfrau Railway. One would hope that is how they got the goal posts up there? Thinking about the NFL or New England Patriots hiring a fleet of helicopters to fly up there and land on top of a world heritage site just to plant goal posts for a stunt feels like maybe the juice wouldn’t be worth the squeeze. But imagining them trudging the goal posts up via railway and then carrying it up there seems like a proper amount of suffering for a stunt such as this.
One thing you probably already know about Adam Vinatieri is that he started his kicking career in Europe. His first season as a field goal kicker after going undrafted out of South Dakota State was for the Amsterdam Admirals in The Netherlands. He played in 10 games in the 1996 WLAF season, was 9-of-10 on field goals made, punted 41 times, and was 4-of-4 in XPs.
That was enough to get him the nod from the New England Patriots where he signed on June 28, 1996. From there, the rest was history. He would set NFL records for the most points scored (2,673), most consecutive FGs made (44), most combined regular and postseason games (397), most career field goals (599), most overtime FGs (11), and most postseason field goals (14). Quite literally, the GOAT when it comes to field goal kicking.