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NFL Snooze News: Volume Four, Por Favor


Heimdallr

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#40 for accuracy in NFL history and with his huge leg. I think that for the length of his career and the touchback prowess, he's probably barely worth the 1st round pick. Plus, looking at that draft, yeash, not great for the later part of round one. The Raiders probably would have taken the fastest remaining WR or DB, so he as better than any of them by a long ways.

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You may say he's "not very good", but he's been been consistent for the most part.  Except for 2013, he's been fairly consistently above 80% of all FGs...and he's made 93% of all FGs within 40 yds for his career.  And he'll get you about 3-4 50+ yd Fgs a year.  You know what you're going to get from him...and that's not all that bad.  It's not like he's going from making 12 50+ yd kicks to not even being able to hit a FG under 40 yds with any consistency.  He's not Vinatieri, but he's solid.  

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But when you're a top 20 pick, at kicker, you better be one of the all time greats.

A kicker to be given 1st round consideration, is like a QB in the vein of John Elway, Peyton Manning, and Andrew Luck. One of the greatest prospects ever. 

And when you're that level of prospect, being simply average, doesn't cut it. 

Edited by SemperFeist
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Despite the preposterous nature of the statement, I think in today's game, drafting a kicker in the first round might even be a better option than some of the picks that have been made.  Kicker is an awfully important position and is far too undervalued, especially with the new rules.  You say he's simply average...but a kicker doesn't spend 17 years in 1 spot if he's simply average.  He's certainly not a HOFer, but, at least IMO, he's done enough at this point to validate the selection.  

I don't think you need to be a HOF kicker to warrant a 1st round selection, especially when you consider that there are only 2 kickers in the HOF.  That's an awfully high bar to set expectations by.  There are far too many bad prospects taken at any position in the 1st round to single out Ks as necessarily having to be HOF-worthy prospects to do so.  

Now, I don't expect that to change anytime soon.  I think it has more to do with positional value than it has anything to do with prospect value itself.  NFL organizations just don't value kickers all that highly and the reality is that it's so difficult to project kickers from college to pro.  Stephen Gostkowski wasn't a great kicker in college.  In fact, he was rather mediocre, making only 76.5% of his kicks.  He's turned out to be pretty good.  Dan Bailey...the same thing.  Alex Henery was one of the best kickers in college history...out of the NFL after 4 years.  

The NFL just isn't good at evaluating kickers, so they wait until later in the draft or go to the UDFA route.  I think the Aguayo selection is proof of how bad they are at it.  But, if they were to devise a way to effectively evaluate them, I think kickers would (and probably should) be taken much higher than they are.  

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I don't know about 1st round for kickers.  However, I do think that the kicking game needs to be part of the game plan and overall offensive strategy.  It seems as if the kicking game is always an after thought.

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