Wes’ Words – Lets Give Kickers The Boot

Dec 7

Wes Vork-NSO

With everyone having to do a bit more with a little less because of cutbacks associated with the current economic crisis, one cut the NFL missed occurred to me while watching Sunday’s football games–give all of the kickers the boot. By eliminating this position, the NFL could save a few bucks and the game would be better for it.

Now I have nothing against these guys.
For the most part, they are great athletes and fine people. They aren’t the individuals in the news giving their respective team bad publicity. However, let’s take a look at what the kicker’s job on an NFL football team is. Basically it comes down to three things: kickoffs, extra points and field goals.

The kicker’s first responsibility, kickoff duties, could be handled by the punter; he isn’t exactly an overworked sort. On a good team, say Indy or New Orleans, the punters probably don’t even need to hit the showers after a game. Having them assume the kickoff duties doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to their job description.

Second is the extra point attempt. This has gotten to be such a “gimme”, the only time you see this on the news is
the rare occurrence in which they miss. Fans watch the game with great interest until a touchdown is scored, then leave to either get or get rid of their favorite beverage while the point after is being kicked.

Filling this part of the job is simple, make the two point conversion mandatory. The success rate of the two point would be a lot less than the 99 and 44/100’s percent rate of extra points. This would certainly make the time investment of watching this untimed down worthwhile.

Lastly, the field goal. Solving this is easy as well. The offense would simply have two choices under my plan: go for it on fourth down or punt. Remember, we have that guy on the payroll whose only other job is to kickoff, so a few extra punts make his job a little more justifiable.

Watching the Saints vs. Redskins game on Sunday, one was able to see just how much of a role the kicker has in determining the outcome of a game. Now, this may not be the perfect game to use to make my point because the Saints could have ran the ball in for a touchdown and an overtime win. However, the fact remains it was the kicker Garrett Hartley, playing in his first game of the year, that won the game for them.

Another point not to be lost in the shuffle is the Saints kicker’s heroics would not even have come into play if Shaun Suisham from Washington would have made a salt the game away 23 yard field goal with less than two minutes to go in the game. Think about that, 23 yards and the guy is still on the payroll. I know ML-WR high school kicker Mike Bennett could have nailed it for the Skins, and for a lot less money.

While this kick fest to decide a winner was taking place, Drew Brees, Jason Campbell and all of the other big dollar high profile players who worked their tail off for the entire game were merely standing on the sidelines watching the game like the rest of us. The NBA version of this would be to have Kobe Bryant and Duane Wade duel it out for 4 quarters, only to take a seat and have some guys on the far end of the bench shoot free throws to determine a winner.

In all seriousness, the economic savings of one position probably isn’t all that important to
an NFL franchise. However, eliminating field goals and extra points would make the game of professional football much more exciting to watch, much like the addition of the shootout in the NHL. Now that is something we can all get a kick out of.

Wes Vork can be reached at wes@northlandsportsonline.com