Do kickers in NFL use a specific type of ball?

Answer 1

No, but it is easy to understand where such a misunderstanding might come from. Kickers in the NFL used to have free access to the balls they would kick with. They would spend quite a bit of time and effort preparing them by squishing them down to manipulate the kind of reaction they had off the foot. Kickers prefer balls that have been 'broken in'. But there were also some concerns about too much doctoring of the ball, and the NFL has been trying to make life harder on the kicker to encourage fewer touchbacks and fewer field goal attempts since these plays are less exciting than the alternative. So the NFL decided to make sure that balls that were kicked with were fresh, and so they would hold some in reserve and these were referred to as the 'K' balls (for Kicker). Because the ball was particularly new it was slicker and the leather a bit harder than the ball in play, but it was effectively the same ball as the one in play was before it was subjected to the punishment of game play. Thus when a kicker comes into the game, one of the first things he does is start maniacally squishing and manipulating the ball in an attempt to break it in a little before he is required to resume play.