A year ago, Blair Walsh was plugging along as a steady presence on the Vikings, finishing the season with the most made field goals in the NFL (34). Now he's been released from Minnesota, with the team dumping the long-time kicker on Tuesday.

In between that time came a brutal missed field goal in the playoffs, a 27-yard shank that caused the Vikings to lose to the Seahawks in one of the coldest playoff games in NFL history.

Walsh almost certainly was affected by the miss: he's been horribly inaccurate this season. Walsh was 15 of 19 on extra points (78.9 percent) before being released, and just 12 of 16 on field goals (75 percent) for the year.

The number of misses aren't any different from last year, when Walsh missed four extra points and five field goals, but we're just over halfway through the season and clearly the Vikings felt they couldn't trust him at this stage. They tried out six kickers last week and now are moving on from Walsh.

Fans of the team responded on social media to the release in absolutely savage fashion.

Many made jokes.

Some put up "Madden NFL 17" video game screenshots.

And some just remembered the horrific kick in last year's playoffs.

Walsh is by all accounts a very nice person, so it's a shame to see him attacked like this on a really tough day. But it's the life of a kicker magnified -- fans are unrelenting and the NFL will chew up and spit out even the most talented kickers.