by Nick Webster
Some records seem like they'll stand forever — buried deep in the statistical archaeology of professional football, known only to the obsessive researchers who catalogue the game's forgotten corners. The record for the oldest player to block a kick in an NFL regular season was one of them. For nearly half a century, that distinction belonged to Ron McDole, a Washington defensive end who swatted a Colts field goal attempt on a November afternoon in 1978 at the age of 39 years and 58 days.
Then came Calais Campbell, and December 2025.
In back-to-back weeks spanning December 14 and December 21, 2025, Campbell — back in a Cardinals uniform at the age of 39 — blocked two kicks, including a Zach Gonzalez extra point in the season's final stretch. The December 21st block, recorded at 39 years and 111 days old, cleared McDole's mark by more than 50 days, settling the matter definitively.
It is, according to my historical blocked kick database underlying this research (4,673 blocks deep from 1920 to date, and growing), the oldest age at which any player has blocked a kick in NFL history.
Who Was Ron McDole?
Ron McDole is not a name that registers easily in the modern football conversation, and that's precisely the point. A defensive end drafted in 1961, McDole bounced from the NFL to the AFL early in the turbulent merger era, spending the bulk of his career with the Buffalo Bills and later the Washington Redskins. He was a skilled pass rusher and a nightmare on the punt and kick coverage units — a player with light feet for his size who understood leverage and timing well enough to make blockers look foolish into his late 30s.
His last recorded block came on November 6, 1978, when he got his hand on a Toni Linhart field goal attempt for the Washington franchise. He was 39 years and 58 days old. The record sat untouched across 47 years and thousands of games.
What Makes Campbell's Achievement Extraordinary
Age records in football tend to belong to kickers, punters, and quarterbacks — positions where longevity is built into the job description. A kick blocker at 39 is a different matter entirely. Blocking a kick requires elite timing, first-step explosion, and the ability to win inside against an offensive lineman in a compact space. These are the exact athletic traits that time erodes first in big men. You’ll find many kick blockers who compile numbers early, then trail off.
Campbell entered the league in 2008 as a second-round pick out of The U. He spent the better part of a decade as a highly complete defensive lineman among the most complete in the game — a 6'8", 300-pound force capable of collapsing a pocket, stopping the run, and disrupting the kicking game with equal authority. He has blocked 11 kicks across his career, according to the detail log, the first coming in his Arizona debut season, the last arriving in the final weeks of the 2025 season.
That the same player who blocked kicks as a 22-year-old first-year starter is still recording them at 39 is not just longevity — it is sustained elite athleticism across an almost incomprehensible time span.
The Two December 2025 Blocks
The first came on December 14 against Houston, when Campbell got his hand on a Ka'imi Fairbairn 52-yard field goal attempt. He was 39 years and 104 days old — breaking McDole’s almost 50-year-old mark.
Seven days later, on December 21, he blocked Gonzalez's extra point attempt for the Cardinals. He was 39 years and 111 days old, extending the mark even further.
Why This Record Matters
Football history is dominated by the countable, the cumulative, and the season total. Records organized around when a thing happened — the oldest, the youngest, the longest gap — occupy a different register. They're harder to discover, harder to verify, and seldom recognized in real time.
McDole's record survived because almost no one knew it existed. Campbell didn't break it by chasing it. He broke it by still being good enough, at 39, to get off the line fast enough, with enough leverage, to alter a kick—twice—in the final month of a professional football season.
Ron McDole held that distinction for 47 years. Calais Campbell earned it through a career that has refused, for nearly two decades, to stop producing.
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