Editor's note: In the Vikings' first game of 2016 at Tennessee, Blair Walsh missed his first two field goal attempts in the first half, and a extra point attempt in the third quarter. We're re-purposing this story that followed Walsh's account in training camp.

MANKATO, Minn. -- The shouts begin as soon as the final whistle sounds.

"Blair! Blair! Over here!"

The Minnesota Vikings have wrapped their first practice of training camp, a half-speed walk-through that drew thousands of fans to Minnesota State University, Mankato. All of them, it seems, are begging for a moment with Blair Walsh, the kicker who led the NFL in field goals (34) last season but missed a 27-yard chance that would have defeated the Seattle Seahawks in the wild-card playoff round.

If these fans are still holding it against him, as many did in the hours and days after the loss, it isn't evident now. (Maybe they just really want an autograph and figure the kicker is an easy target. Who knows.) Walsh stops, signs and poses for pictures. In an interview later, he insists that -- with some help from the Vikings -- he has moved past what will go down as one of the most famous kicking gaffes in NFL history.

Blair Walsh and the Vikings carefully laid out a plan to restore the kicker's confidence after his soul-crushing miss from 27 yards in a playoff game against the Seahawks. AP Photo/Jim Mone

"I think people would be shocked to know how little I think about it at this point," Walsh said. "And when I say that, it's not to mean that I didn't dwell on it or didn't care about what happened. But if I'm at this stage and I'm still thinking about that, then I'm in big trouble.

"I think the fans realize how good I am. And that's not from a cocky place. That's honesty. It's a fact. And they know how good I will be. This isn't someone that was in there for one year and had a bad season and finished it off like that. It was just a fluke. I'll work my hardest to have it never happen again. There will be big kicks I'll have to make for this team, whether it's Week 1 or Week 17. I'm sure it will happen. I'll do my best to step up and make it."

You would hope and expect to hear those words from a veteran kicker in the second year of a contract that makes him the sixth-highest paid at his position. Six months ago, however, it was worth wondering how the miss would impact an admittedly sensitive player at a position skewed heavily toward the psyche. It's one thing to weep openly in the postgame locker room, as Walsh did in a rare display of NFL emotion. It's quite another to fend off the psychological doubts that have destroyed scores of kicking careers.

To be sure, the Vikings took no chances this offseason. Coach Mike Zimmer gave special teams coordinator Mike Priefer simple instructions when OTAs began in May: Make sure Walsh has a good spring. Priefer revised his practice plan to lighten Walsh's degree of difficulty. In other words, the Vikings intentionally took it easy on him.

Kicking drills began with, say, a 30-yard kick, instead of one from 40 yards. There were no attempts to slice through a stiff wind, a regular occurrence during Minnesota springs. Priefer quashed any temptation to practice exotic kicks from, say, 65 yards out.

"Zim told me to make sure he gets his confidence back," Priefer said. "And Blair is not a guy that loses his confidence very often or easily. But the distances we had him kick from -- and we gradually moved them back as the spring went on -- helped. Just seeing the ball go through the uprights over and over and over again is just so good for a kicker's psyche and a team's psyche."

Indeed, Zimmer wasn't simply focused on Walsh's confidence. He knew that a shaky spring could unnerve teammates -- and that Walsh would sense their anxiety. As it turned out, Walsh converted 92 percent of the approximately 250 field goals he attempted in formal kicking drills this spring.

"We really made it successful for him," Zimmer said. "We made sure his confidence was good, and he kicked the ball well."

Walsh actually blushed when I asked him about the adjustment, saying it was "against my wishes," but he appreciated the gesture.

"I don't need to be babied or coddled," he said, "and I don't think that was what he was trying to do. I think he was just trying to avoid the scenario where I'm going out there and bombing 50-yarders right off the bat. I get it. I know he'll test me here in camp, and I want to be tested. [Zimmer] has been very good about it, and the way he has handled it has been awesome."

Even in his offseason workouts, Walsh focused on what he called the "automatic" kicks. He missed four extra points last season and another three field goals under 50 yards; his conversion rate on kicks from 18-49 yards (90.3 percent) ranked 14th in the NFL. While he has been one of the game's top long-distance kickers in his career, having made a league-high 23 from 50 yards and beyond since 2012, his career conversion rate on kicks under 50 yards (88.9) is tied for No. 21 overall during that period.

"I've had a very good career with long-distance kicks," he said. "But one of my weaknesses that I had to address was to continue to be more and more automatic from all ranges. Overall, I'm very accurate. But that's one of the ways I wanted to improve."

In the end, Priefer said, the playoff miss was a painful reminder that there are no chip shots in NFL kicking.

"He needs to remain focused on every kick," Priefer said. "I think he learned from that. At the end of the day, you win as a team and lose as a team. [But] he may have lost focus for one split second, and that cost us the game. He's been awesome about working on that."

It would have been a mistake to wave a wand and simply assume Walsh would bounce back from such devastation or to count on him to handle it himself. Frankly, we still don't know if he has -- and we won't until he starts making kicks in games again.

But the good news is that neither he nor the Vikings ignored the issue. They made a plan to address it. Time will tell if it worked.