New Orleans Saints: ‘Lucky I didn’t break my hand’ – Derek Carr reacts to Charlie Smyth’s game-winner

While Smyth’s winning effort on Saturday would be viewed as relatively routine for an NFL kicker, he was seen successfully executing from considerably greater distances during his pre-game preparations.

New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen said after the game that he would have been confident handing Smyth a more challenging effort had the final drive stalled further back up the field.

“We would’ve kicked it from, I don’t know, sixty. You know? Depending on how much time was left in the game and whether I thought the down and distance was, what we thought the percentages was,” he said.

“But I felt good about him hitting the distance, wasn’t worried about that at all.”

Having only previously watched him work in practice, Allen was pleased by Smyth’s ability to perform in a “pressure situation” with a game on the line.

“I thought that was awesome,” he added.

“First kick in, not an NFL game, a football game, in an American football game. For him to knock it through like that in a pressure situation, that was cool to see.”

The Saints’ pre-season continues against the San Francisco 49ers at 01:00 BST on Monday 19 August, building towards their first competitive action of the 2024 campaign against the Carolina Panthers on 8 September.

Smyth was not the only player from Northern Ireland to make his NFL debut over the weekend.

Swatragh’s Jude McAtamney, another from a GAA background but who previously played college football at Rutgers, kicked an extra-point in the New York Giants’ pre-season win over the Detroit Lions on Friday night.