Andy Reid tried to ice Lawrence Tynes, almost iced Eagles chances of winning

As a practice, icing the kicker seems to be falling out of favor among NFL coaches. Sunday night should hasten the process.

Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid tried to ice New York Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes on his game-winning field goal attempt and called timeout immediately before Tynes missed the kick. Because Reid had called timeout, Tynes was given another chance to win the game.

Luckily for Reid and the Eagles, Tynes left the second attempt short and Philly was able to sneak out a victory against its division rival.

If Tynes had made the second field goal attempt after Reid gave him the opportunity to kick it, the Philadelphia coach's seat may have been too hot to sit on over the next few weeks.

Why shouldn't coaches ice the kicker? Because the specialists are expecting it. The decades-long trend of icing kickers is so ingrained in the mentality of the players that it seems to prepare kickers better for big kicks. An ESPN study showed that iced kickers made 77.8 percent of their pressure field goal attempts from 50 to 59 yards. Kickers who weren't iced made them at a rate of 37.5 percent. Overall, icing the kicker led to 13 percent more field goals.

It's not hard to guess why. The strategy behind icing is that it gives the kicker more time to think about his attempt and increases the duration between warmups and the actual kick. More time to think, less time to prepare. It makes sense. But kickers have adapted.

Now, the true icing move is not to call a timeout. A good kicker isn't thinking about whether a team will ice him. But if it's in the back of his mind that they might and then he's forced to kick, it could lead to an unfocused attempt. Or it doesn't. Either way, the kicker has to kick the ball. It doesn't matter whether it happens before or after a timeout. If there's a possibility that icing can lead to one missed kick and one successful kick, that's reason enough to abandon the practice.

Eagles quarterback Michael Vick seems to realize this.

"I don't believe in icing the kicker," he told NBC after the game. "You give everything. You let them kick it and if it's good, it's going to be good. If not, you can't play games. I don't know who started that, but we have to end that tradition."