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Nugent kicking himself
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
By RANDY LANGE
STAFF WRITER
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- The Jets celebrated their neat opening-day 23-16 victory over the Titans in various understated ways.
There was a whole lot of smiling going on. Coach Eric Mangini said he, his wife and two kids marked the occasion late Sunday not with champagne but with apple pie a la mode.
For Mike Nugent, the taste was not as creamy and much more bitter.
"I don't know what was going on," the Jets' placekicker said of his bad day at the office, "but the feeling I got in just watching the film was that it didn't even look like me kicking.
"My teammates and my coaches didn't deserve to be in that position."
Many fans are muttering that Nugent deserves to be kicking himself after his three botched placements -- an extra point and 34- and 30-yard field goal tries -- which allowed the Titans to stay alive for a two-touchdown comeback in an attempt to rescue a home-opening win.
The Jets survived the comeback bid, but the question already is being asked outside the team whether they should start taking a look at available kickers.
Mangini didn't squelch speculation that the topic would come up at his nightly meeting with general manager Mike Tannenbaum.
"We'll go through the game and the performances across the board," Mangini said. "We'll look at what's out there in terms of opportunities. I don't mean that exclusively in that one [kicking] area. That's something we do every single night. We'll do that again [Monday] evening and see if there's any possibilities to improve the team."
It would seem premature to talk about trying to move out Nugent, who had an impeccable Ohio State career before the Jets maneuvered to draft him in the second round a year ago.
But this is a team with Doug Brien's playoff meltdown in its recent memory -- which, after all, is why Nugent is here -- and a new management duo that isn't that married to any of last year's players, especially if they might stand in the way of progress.
"There are a lot of things we have to get better at," Mangini said. "We have to fight the human nature of 'Things aren't so bad.' On the flip side of that, when you lose, you have to fight human nature that the sky is falling."
On the one hand, plenty of NFL kickers bounce back from misses every week. But on the other, Nugent didn't have your everyday bad day. The last Jet to miss three kicks in a game was John Hall in 1999. And the last to shank two short field goals in a game was Cary Blanchard, from 27 and 36 yards in a 1992 home win over Cincinnati.
"There's absolutely no excuse" for his misses, said Nugent, who knows there's nothing he could do if there suddenly was new competition for his job. "All I can do is worry about what I can do to help this team out," he said.
As for why he pushed those three kicks, he said he had problems even in warm-ups with his foot hitting the ground as he kicked, which always causes his kicks to go right.
The best thing Nugent can do is chalk it all up to bad opening-day karma again -- in his rookie debut at Kansas City last year, he slipped and had his first pro field goal try blocked.
"The thing I love is that we've got 15 games to go," he said. "I don't think I'm in a slump. I had one of the best camps I've ever had.
"It was just one of those days. I didn't put everything together like I should have and like I can."
E-mail: [email protected]
Nugent kicking himself
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
By RANDY LANGE
STAFF WRITER
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- The Jets celebrated their neat opening-day 23-16 victory over the Titans in various understated ways.
There was a whole lot of smiling going on. Coach Eric Mangini said he, his wife and two kids marked the occasion late Sunday not with champagne but with apple pie a la mode.
For Mike Nugent, the taste was not as creamy and much more bitter.
"I don't know what was going on," the Jets' placekicker said of his bad day at the office, "but the feeling I got in just watching the film was that it didn't even look like me kicking.
"My teammates and my coaches didn't deserve to be in that position."
Many fans are muttering that Nugent deserves to be kicking himself after his three botched placements -- an extra point and 34- and 30-yard field goal tries -- which allowed the Titans to stay alive for a two-touchdown comeback in an attempt to rescue a home-opening win.
The Jets survived the comeback bid, but the question already is being asked outside the team whether they should start taking a look at available kickers.
Mangini didn't squelch speculation that the topic would come up at his nightly meeting with general manager Mike Tannenbaum.
"We'll go through the game and the performances across the board," Mangini said. "We'll look at what's out there in terms of opportunities. I don't mean that exclusively in that one [kicking] area. That's something we do every single night. We'll do that again [Monday] evening and see if there's any possibilities to improve the team."
It would seem premature to talk about trying to move out Nugent, who had an impeccable Ohio State career before the Jets maneuvered to draft him in the second round a year ago.
But this is a team with Doug Brien's playoff meltdown in its recent memory -- which, after all, is why Nugent is here -- and a new management duo that isn't that married to any of last year's players, especially if they might stand in the way of progress.
"There are a lot of things we have to get better at," Mangini said. "We have to fight the human nature of 'Things aren't so bad.' On the flip side of that, when you lose, you have to fight human nature that the sky is falling."
On the one hand, plenty of NFL kickers bounce back from misses every week. But on the other, Nugent didn't have your everyday bad day. The last Jet to miss three kicks in a game was John Hall in 1999. And the last to shank two short field goals in a game was Cary Blanchard, from 27 and 36 yards in a 1992 home win over Cincinnati.
"There's absolutely no excuse" for his misses, said Nugent, who knows there's nothing he could do if there suddenly was new competition for his job. "All I can do is worry about what I can do to help this team out," he said.
As for why he pushed those three kicks, he said he had problems even in warm-ups with his foot hitting the ground as he kicked, which always causes his kicks to go right.
The best thing Nugent can do is chalk it all up to bad opening-day karma again -- in his rookie debut at Kansas City last year, he slipped and had his first pro field goal try blocked.
"The thing I love is that we've got 15 games to go," he said. "I don't think I'm in a slump. I had one of the best camps I've ever had.
"It was just one of those days. I didn't put everything together like I should have and like I can."
E-mail: [email protected]
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Jets | Nugent's job safe for now
Tue, 12 Sep 2006 14:23:00 -0700
Dave Hutchinson, of the Star-Ledger, reports New York Jets PK Mike Nugent's job is likely safe for now, even though Nugent missed an extra point and two field goals Week 1.
http://www.kffl.com/hotw/nfl
Tue, 12 Sep 2006 14:23:00 -0700
Dave Hutchinson, of the Star-Ledger, reports New York Jets PK Mike Nugent's job is likely safe for now, even though Nugent missed an extra point and two field goals Week 1.
http://www.kffl.com/hotw/nfl
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DDN
Jets' Nugent tries to forget misses
The former Centerville and OSU star missed three short kicks Sunday.
By Barry Wilner
Associated Press
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. ? NFL kickers have a difficult enough job simply fitting in. When that kicker is a second-round draft choice coming off a dismal game, well, finding a place to hide would seem a good idea.
Mike Nugent has a better thought: He's attacking the problems head-on.
Nugent missed field goals of 34 and 30 yards and, even worse, blew an extra point in the New York Jets' 23-16 opening victory at Tennessee. His misses, all wide right, left the Titans in position to rally from a 16-0 hole with two touchdowns and a pair of 2-point conversions.
Chad Pennington, who had a brilliant game, led the Jets on a touchdown drive to win it ? and rescue the 2005 second-round pick from Ohio State.
"Missing an extra point, especially that early in the season, you think about it and what it can cost," Nugent said. "That's one of my strengths, the mental approach. After missing the extra point, I missed two very short field goals and there's no excuse for that.
"My worst opening day was last year, and then I come up with what happened yesterday."
As a rookie, Nugent slipped on a 28-yard field goal try at Kansas City and had it blocked in an opening loss. He recovered to make 22 of 28 field goals and all 24 PATs.
There was no reason to believe he would struggle at the outset this season. Nugent displayed a strong leg and even stronger mind when kicking in big games at Ohio State, and the Jets expected him to be a reliable weapon for a long time.
He wasn't very reliable in Tennessee, though, and coach Eric Mangini didn't exactly give the kicker a solid endorsement. Instead, Mangini said he would discuss the kicking game with special teams coordinator Mike Westhoff.
"Mike and I will get together tonight, just like every night," Mangini said. "We'll go through the game and the performances across the board, look at what's out there in terms of opportunities. I don't mean that exclusively in that one area."
Nugent understands how tenuous his position can be, although NFL teams usually have more patience with kickers in whom they have invested a high draft pick and a lot of money. Nugent also knows there's only one way he can react to Sunday's flop.
"All I can worry about is what I can do to help this team out," he said. "As long as I'm out there doing my job every week, I'm helping the team.
"The play is over and there is nothing I can do about it now, just make up for it on the next one. Obviously I didn't do that."
He was cheered by the response he got from teammates, although such positive words could turn nasty if he can't split the uprights regularly.
"So many of them took time out to encourage me and saying they know they still can rely on me," Nugent said.
Nugent comes off a strong preseason, which made his failures in Nashville more surprising. He'll likely need a quick reversal of fortunes, though, because the Jets and their fans still have bitter memories of Doug Brien missing two field goals in a January 2005 playoff game at Pittsburgh. That's one reason the Jets used a high pick on Nugent.
"In any kind of game, you always want a chance to go out there and contribute," Nugent said. "Anything I can do to help the team I want to do, and I was not doing that for my team (in the opener). My teammates and the coaches didn't deserve to be in that position. We should have had seven more points.
"I can't let them down."
Jets' Nugent tries to forget misses
The former Centerville and OSU star missed three short kicks Sunday.
By Barry Wilner
Associated Press
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. ? NFL kickers have a difficult enough job simply fitting in. When that kicker is a second-round draft choice coming off a dismal game, well, finding a place to hide would seem a good idea.
Mike Nugent has a better thought: He's attacking the problems head-on.
Nugent missed field goals of 34 and 30 yards and, even worse, blew an extra point in the New York Jets' 23-16 opening victory at Tennessee. His misses, all wide right, left the Titans in position to rally from a 16-0 hole with two touchdowns and a pair of 2-point conversions.
Chad Pennington, who had a brilliant game, led the Jets on a touchdown drive to win it ? and rescue the 2005 second-round pick from Ohio State.
"Missing an extra point, especially that early in the season, you think about it and what it can cost," Nugent said. "That's one of my strengths, the mental approach. After missing the extra point, I missed two very short field goals and there's no excuse for that.
"My worst opening day was last year, and then I come up with what happened yesterday."
As a rookie, Nugent slipped on a 28-yard field goal try at Kansas City and had it blocked in an opening loss. He recovered to make 22 of 28 field goals and all 24 PATs.
There was no reason to believe he would struggle at the outset this season. Nugent displayed a strong leg and even stronger mind when kicking in big games at Ohio State, and the Jets expected him to be a reliable weapon for a long time.
He wasn't very reliable in Tennessee, though, and coach Eric Mangini didn't exactly give the kicker a solid endorsement. Instead, Mangini said he would discuss the kicking game with special teams coordinator Mike Westhoff.
"Mike and I will get together tonight, just like every night," Mangini said. "We'll go through the game and the performances across the board, look at what's out there in terms of opportunities. I don't mean that exclusively in that one area."
Nugent understands how tenuous his position can be, although NFL teams usually have more patience with kickers in whom they have invested a high draft pick and a lot of money. Nugent also knows there's only one way he can react to Sunday's flop.
"All I can worry about is what I can do to help this team out," he said. "As long as I'm out there doing my job every week, I'm helping the team.
"The play is over and there is nothing I can do about it now, just make up for it on the next one. Obviously I didn't do that."
He was cheered by the response he got from teammates, although such positive words could turn nasty if he can't split the uprights regularly.
"So many of them took time out to encourage me and saying they know they still can rely on me," Nugent said.
Nugent comes off a strong preseason, which made his failures in Nashville more surprising. He'll likely need a quick reversal of fortunes, though, because the Jets and their fans still have bitter memories of Doug Brien missing two field goals in a January 2005 playoff game at Pittsburgh. That's one reason the Jets used a high pick on Nugent.
"In any kind of game, you always want a chance to go out there and contribute," Nugent said. "Anything I can do to help the team I want to do, and I was not doing that for my team (in the opener). My teammates and the coaches didn't deserve to be in that position. We should have had seven more points.
"I can't let them down."
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MUSIC TO NUGENT'S EARS
JETS KICKER HASN'T BOOTED JOB . . . YET
OFF-LINE: Mike Nugent missed an extra point and two field goals in the Jets' season-opening victory at Tennessee.
Photo: AP September 15, 2006 -- FIVE seconds, Eric Mangini says, that's it. A Jet has five seconds to beat him self up, then he's gotta move on almost as fast as an ex perienced kicker can pack up. Mike Nugent, who missed an extra point and two field goals Sunday, remains Mangini's man. For now.
"He'll be kicking this weekend," said the coach. Monday, Mangini brought in three kickers to create not just a file of potential re placements, but also the percep tion failure will not be tolerated.
That's how coaches coach, by pushing buttons, the better ones equipped with five-second delays. With second-round cap money tied up in Nugent, no way was he going to be cut after one bad day. But as long as the Jets understand that a new coach who practices them in pads, shows films of avalanches and gives hot meals to the scrimmage winners and cold sandwiches to the losers is looking to make an example of just about anybody, Mangini can turn up the volume on the practice loudspeakers and effectively make Nugent show what he's got.
The presumption is if he can kick a 56-yarder with Yanni blaring, he'll be good in the snow Dec. 31 against Oakland. After watching Nugent for a year, we wish we could clue Mangini in, tell him to go pick on Adrian Jones or somebody, but coming off 4-12, we don't know much more about the kicker than the new coach does.
In his rookie year, Nugent was faced with only two final-drive kicks, nailing a 25-yard chip shot with 1:14 left to send the Jacksonville game into overtime, and missing a 53-yarder with 15 seconds to go that could have beaten New Orleans. On the way to 16-for-22 for the year, not much of a sample, Nugent twice kicked four in one game, including against the Saints.
The kid is strong enough on the intangibles to have been a captain at Ohio State. The only reason to doubt he'll have a long career is that you never know about these things.
"Mike had a good practice," reported Mangini yesterday, presumably after playing Eric Burdon's "Spill the Wine" while Nugent went 10-for-10 from 52 yards. "We made it stressful, the music pretty loud, and he responded well.
"I think that's how Mike is. He's going to work at it."
Or, be threatened with kicking to "Copacabana" until he loses his mind.
"It was a mechanical thing where I wasn't hitting the ball well in warmups and carried that through to the game," reiterated Nugent. "You can't miss extra points, but I'm disappointed I let it keep bothering me."
He had five seconds to stop doing that and didn't, but insists he'll grow from it.
"What defines people is how they handle it," he said. "I don't doubt myself because of one day. You do that, it will affect the rest of your career.
"I went out and hit the ball great yesterday. On this level, a kicker knows so much about himself, he can figure out things that help him."
In this case, he was hitting the ground before the ball, which you don't exactly have to be Lou "The Toe" Groza to understand is not a good thing to do. As for any other fundamentals, Adam Vinatieri has priced himself out of New England, vivid proof that fundamentally there is no such thing as an unexpendable kicker.
That's why among Mangini's annoying musical selections Wednesday was not "Don't Worry, Be Happy." Trying to establish a mindset, he wants Nugent and all the Jets hearing "It's Not Easy Being Green."
MUSIC TO NUGENT'S EARS
JETS KICKER HASN'T BOOTED JOB . . . YET
Photo: AP September 15, 2006 -- FIVE seconds, Eric Mangini says, that's it. A Jet has five seconds to beat him self up, then he's gotta move on almost as fast as an ex perienced kicker can pack up. Mike Nugent, who missed an extra point and two field goals Sunday, remains Mangini's man. For now.
"He'll be kicking this weekend," said the coach. Monday, Mangini brought in three kickers to create not just a file of potential re placements, but also the percep tion failure will not be tolerated.
That's how coaches coach, by pushing buttons, the better ones equipped with five-second delays. With second-round cap money tied up in Nugent, no way was he going to be cut after one bad day. But as long as the Jets understand that a new coach who practices them in pads, shows films of avalanches and gives hot meals to the scrimmage winners and cold sandwiches to the losers is looking to make an example of just about anybody, Mangini can turn up the volume on the practice loudspeakers and effectively make Nugent show what he's got.
The presumption is if he can kick a 56-yarder with Yanni blaring, he'll be good in the snow Dec. 31 against Oakland. After watching Nugent for a year, we wish we could clue Mangini in, tell him to go pick on Adrian Jones or somebody, but coming off 4-12, we don't know much more about the kicker than the new coach does.
In his rookie year, Nugent was faced with only two final-drive kicks, nailing a 25-yard chip shot with 1:14 left to send the Jacksonville game into overtime, and missing a 53-yarder with 15 seconds to go that could have beaten New Orleans. On the way to 16-for-22 for the year, not much of a sample, Nugent twice kicked four in one game, including against the Saints.
The kid is strong enough on the intangibles to have been a captain at Ohio State. The only reason to doubt he'll have a long career is that you never know about these things.
"Mike had a good practice," reported Mangini yesterday, presumably after playing Eric Burdon's "Spill the Wine" while Nugent went 10-for-10 from 52 yards. "We made it stressful, the music pretty loud, and he responded well.
"I think that's how Mike is. He's going to work at it."
Or, be threatened with kicking to "Copacabana" until he loses his mind.
"It was a mechanical thing where I wasn't hitting the ball well in warmups and carried that through to the game," reiterated Nugent. "You can't miss extra points, but I'm disappointed I let it keep bothering me."
He had five seconds to stop doing that and didn't, but insists he'll grow from it.
"What defines people is how they handle it," he said. "I don't doubt myself because of one day. You do that, it will affect the rest of your career.
"I went out and hit the ball great yesterday. On this level, a kicker knows so much about himself, he can figure out things that help him."
In this case, he was hitting the ground before the ball, which you don't exactly have to be Lou "The Toe" Groza to understand is not a good thing to do. As for any other fundamentals, Adam Vinatieri has priced himself out of New England, vivid proof that fundamentally there is no such thing as an unexpendable kicker.
That's why among Mangini's annoying musical selections Wednesday was not "Don't Worry, Be Happy." Trying to establish a mindset, he wants Nugent and all the Jets hearing "It's Not Easy Being Green."
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I say, put his ass in a witness protection program, give him a bit of plastic surgery, change his name, and bring him back to Ohio State for four more years. That'd be just fine with me!
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NOTEBOOK
Nugent's approach not routine
BY TOM ROCK
Newsday Staff Writer
September 18, 2006
Mike Nugent changed his pregame routine, and while it did not alter the outcome of the game, it helped put the second-year kicker back on track.
"Sometimes in the past I would just kick to kick," Nugent said. But after missing an extra point and two field goals in last week's win against Tennessee, he started playing mind games. With himself.
Nugent said he focused on game situations rather than just warming up yesterday. It paid off with a clutch 42-yard field goal with 9:20 remaining that cut New England's lead to one possession. After a week in which he was bombarded with questions about his misses, and watched as the Jets brought in three veteran kickers for a tryout on Tuesday, Nugent was able to bounce back from his miserable opener. He credited the success with his new mental preparation.
"I got out on the field," he said, "and it kind of felt like I had put myself there a few times earlier."
NOTEBOOK
Nugent's approach not routine
BY TOM ROCK
Newsday Staff Writer
September 18, 2006
Mike Nugent changed his pregame routine, and while it did not alter the outcome of the game, it helped put the second-year kicker back on track.
"Sometimes in the past I would just kick to kick," Nugent said. But after missing an extra point and two field goals in last week's win against Tennessee, he started playing mind games. With himself.
Nugent said he focused on game situations rather than just warming up yesterday. It paid off with a clutch 42-yard field goal with 9:20 remaining that cut New England's lead to one possession. After a week in which he was bombarded with questions about his misses, and watched as the Jets brought in three veteran kickers for a tryout on Tuesday, Nugent was able to bounce back from his miserable opener. He credited the success with his new mental preparation.
"I got out on the field," he said, "and it kind of felt like I had put myself there a few times earlier."
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Nuge/NYJ just caught the colts by surprise with an outstanding onsides kick with 10:10 to go in the 2nd qtr (7-7).
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[FONT=Verdana,Arial, Helvetica]Good kickers are tricky to predict[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial, Helvetica] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Published October 29, 2006[/FONT]
[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial, Helvetica][FONT=Verdana,Arial, Helvetica] Robbie Gould, Matt Bryant and Lawrence Tynes -- three men with a great deal of publicity this past week and three good reasons why NFL teams don't often draft kickers.
While Mike Nugent, on whom the Jets squandered a second-round pick in 2005, continues to waffle and fill his teammates with anxiety, a couple dozen other kickers with lesser paychecks and no pedigree are producing at a much higher level.
In fact, there was no good reason to draft Gould, Bryant or Tynes when they left college, as none had compiled a dossier of golden moments.
But like so many other excellent kickers, they developed as professionals, and today Gould is on a 20-in-a-row field goal streak for the Bears.
Bryant, meanwhile, is the toast of Tampa after last Sunday kicking a game-winning 62-yard field goal that might have been a season-turning blast, while Tynes was doing much the same for the Chiefs from 53 yards out.
Kickers not only drive fans crazy, but NFL personnel executives as well because about 95 percent of them under the age of 24 are unpredictable.
Nugent looked like a safe enough call in his final year at Ohio State, so emotionally strong and possessed of leader-ship that he was elected captain, a rare honor for a kicker.
But he had a shaky rookie year for the Jets and already in 2006 has missed two in the 30-to-39 range. On top of that he has trouble reaching the 10-yard line on kickoffs. Of his 92 NFL kickoffs (not counting two on-side kicks), he has only three touchbacks.
"I know a lot of special teams coaches in the NFL, and it's really an interesting topic why more kickers don't get drafted," says Mike Mayock, the draft expert for the NFL Network. "The mentality is that it takes two to four years to be a productive kicker. David Akers is easily one of the two or three best kickers in the NFL, but it took him three years before he landed with the Eagles, and that's more the norm than the exception."
It certainly was the norm for Bryant, whose first employer when he left Baylor in 1999 was the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena League. It was 2002 before he got an NFL job, and he lasted just two years with the Giants before becoming just another street kicker.
But if Bryant fits The Mayock Rule, Gould, who has achieved stardom in only his second year, does not. He barely converted 50 percent of his field goals in his senior year at Penn State before signing as rookie camp fodder with the Patriots and Ravens, who both waived him. Of course, he wasn't going to beat out Adam Vinatieri or Matt Stover. But how do you put a price on the value he got from observing two great veteran kickers ply their trade?
Tynes is another example of a kicker emerging in his third year. After an unremarkable final year at Troy State, he wasn't offered a rookie free agent contract with the NFL, signing instead to play two years in the CFL.
"We first noticed him in the CFL," said Chiefs President Carl Peterson. "Then we acquired him and sent him to NFL Europe for more experience. He got beat out by Morton Andersen in 2003, but he came back the next year and you could see how much more confident he was."
How much more confident? "He told me, `I'm going to beat out Andersen this time,'" said Peterson. And he did.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial, Helvetica]Good kickers are tricky to predict[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial, Helvetica] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Published October 29, 2006[/FONT]
[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial, Helvetica][FONT=Verdana,Arial, Helvetica] Robbie Gould, Matt Bryant and Lawrence Tynes -- three men with a great deal of publicity this past week and three good reasons why NFL teams don't often draft kickers.
While Mike Nugent, on whom the Jets squandered a second-round pick in 2005, continues to waffle and fill his teammates with anxiety, a couple dozen other kickers with lesser paychecks and no pedigree are producing at a much higher level.
In fact, there was no good reason to draft Gould, Bryant or Tynes when they left college, as none had compiled a dossier of golden moments.
But like so many other excellent kickers, they developed as professionals, and today Gould is on a 20-in-a-row field goal streak for the Bears.
Bryant, meanwhile, is the toast of Tampa after last Sunday kicking a game-winning 62-yard field goal that might have been a season-turning blast, while Tynes was doing much the same for the Chiefs from 53 yards out.
Kickers not only drive fans crazy, but NFL personnel executives as well because about 95 percent of them under the age of 24 are unpredictable.
Nugent looked like a safe enough call in his final year at Ohio State, so emotionally strong and possessed of leader-ship that he was elected captain, a rare honor for a kicker.
But he had a shaky rookie year for the Jets and already in 2006 has missed two in the 30-to-39 range. On top of that he has trouble reaching the 10-yard line on kickoffs. Of his 92 NFL kickoffs (not counting two on-side kicks), he has only three touchbacks.
"I know a lot of special teams coaches in the NFL, and it's really an interesting topic why more kickers don't get drafted," says Mike Mayock, the draft expert for the NFL Network. "The mentality is that it takes two to four years to be a productive kicker. David Akers is easily one of the two or three best kickers in the NFL, but it took him three years before he landed with the Eagles, and that's more the norm than the exception."
It certainly was the norm for Bryant, whose first employer when he left Baylor in 1999 was the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena League. It was 2002 before he got an NFL job, and he lasted just two years with the Giants before becoming just another street kicker.
But if Bryant fits The Mayock Rule, Gould, who has achieved stardom in only his second year, does not. He barely converted 50 percent of his field goals in his senior year at Penn State before signing as rookie camp fodder with the Patriots and Ravens, who both waived him. Of course, he wasn't going to beat out Adam Vinatieri or Matt Stover. But how do you put a price on the value he got from observing two great veteran kickers ply their trade?
Tynes is another example of a kicker emerging in his third year. After an unremarkable final year at Troy State, he wasn't offered a rookie free agent contract with the NFL, signing instead to play two years in the CFL.
"We first noticed him in the CFL," said Chiefs President Carl Peterson. "Then we acquired him and sent him to NFL Europe for more experience. He got beat out by Morton Andersen in 2003, but he came back the next year and you could see how much more confident he was."
How much more confident? "He told me, `I'm going to beat out Andersen this time,'" said Peterson. And he did.[/FONT][/FONT]
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Miss by Nugent. Off to the right and a bit short. I thought he had that one.
Browns 10 - Jets 3
Browns 10 - Jets 3
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Smooth Olaf
Checking out Channel 9, man.
It was really neat to hear "NUUUUUUUUUUGE!" over the radio.
Damn, he hasn't had a good run in the NFL so far.
Damn, he hasn't had a good run in the NFL so far.
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