Kicker

I haven’t really seen anything on this board regarding the kicking game in quite awhile. In some regards, I guess that’s good. As bad as the kicking game was in 2017 and 2018, 2019 at least brought some stability. Jason Myers seemed to stumble out of the gate and brought the ire of many fans early in the season.

He connected on 82.1% of his kicks which is a bit under his career percentage of 83.9% but that is skewed somewhat by his 91.7% in 2018 with the Jets. In 2019 he missed 5 of his first 12 attempts through week 8. Weeks 9-16 he was 11 of 11 for 100%. In the two playoff games he went 2/4. So, in the first 8 games of the season he hit on 58% of his kicks, 100% in the last 8 games and 50% in the playoffs.

Myers is signed through 2022 with a cap hit in ‘20 of $3.6 million. He has a dead cap hit of $2 million in ‘21 if he’s cut. His ‘21 and ‘22 numbers are $4.3 and $5 million respectively.

Did he show enough in ‘19 to be brought back with little to no competition based on his contract numbers? Or did he show enough inconsistencies that we will see another consecutive year post Haushka where they look for another viable replacement?

I started to relax a bit in the last half of the year on field goal kicks, anticipating less and less that he would miss makeable kicks. It didn’t surprise me in the playoffs when he missed.

He's fine. Not an area where we need to go into "gotta find a replacement" mode IMHO.

In short, too many holes to spend draft capital on. If they bring in a UDFA or something, no problem, 90 slots to fill in pre-season, but I think our kicking game is solid for now.

He was 6 for 11 from 40 plus (including 2 of 4 from 50 plus) perfect from inside.

Not great, but not a real issue

How many extra point attempts did he miss?

Does anyone have any insight to coaching kickers and punters?

It seems like kickers that come to Seattle seem to do a little worse than they did previously. Maybe that's just the natural volatility of the numbers. I don't know. But it occurs to me that Dickson was great as a rookie and he wasn't quite as great last year. I'm not complaining and I don't mean for the conversation to be about specific individuals. I'm just wondering if the nature of kicking might not lend itself to "always compete." I know there are coaches in the league that really believe in the benefit of picking a QB so that starter doesn't have to worry about losing their place and can concentrate on the playbook. Of course, if they stink, they get booted but is there some benefit in avoiding the competition scenario? Could it be the same with kickers/punters?

The problem I have with Myers is that whilst you could argue he is serviceable as a kicker we are, I'm led to believe, paying him as one of the better kickers in the league. I'm not convinced on the ROI. He needs to be better from further out to warrant the big bucks imho.

Meyers isn't going anywhere, he's got a 3M cap hit for 2020, and Pete doesn't want to continue the revolving door of kicker that's been going on here since Hauschka left.

Now maybe they'll draft a kicker late, or bring in a couple to push Meyers in camp. But this is a non discussion IMO, doesn't matter that Meyers underperformed this season.

Appyhawk":1o15jxjx said:

How many extra point attempts did he miss?

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4 out of 44 attempts. Not sure how that compares league wide, but it's a 90.9% rate which is the peak number for his career.

http://www.nfl.com/player/jasonmyers/25 ... areerstats

Cap penalty will be too much. Were stuck with him for at least one more year.

The very LEAST of this teams concerns.

Is 4 ex pt misses an official stat? Seems low to me. I was thinking he missed 3 in one game but maybe it wa just 2 and I lumped in the missed FG.
Anyway I think Largent is right, at least for this year. We simply have too many other pressing needs when our guy is at least serviceable.
I will add that having exceptional kickers is underrated. Their impact on the game is why it is called football. Punters go far to establish field position while a good PK can put points on the board when an offense is struggling. It pays to get the best for those positions.

Kickers sucked leaguewide. A ton of missed x-tra points. It's now a 30 yard FG. Many think it's automatic but it obviously is not. Myers hit some clutch kicks for us. Haushka missed a bunch of clutch kicks for Buff...just sayin.

Appyhawk":1v0kusg1 said:

Is 4 ex pt misses an official stat? Seems low to me. I was thinking he missed 3 in one game but maybe it wa just 2 and I lumped in the missed FG.
Anyway I think Largent is right, at least for this year. We simply have too many other pressing needs when our guy is at least serviceable.
I will add that having exceptional kickers is underrated. Their impact on the game is why it is called football. Punters go far to establish field position while a good PK can put points on the board when an offense is struggling. It pays to get the best for those positions.

Click to expand...

I posted the link. It's from the nfl page. :229031_shrug:

http://www.nfl.com/player/jasonmyers/25 ... areerstats

Again, I don't know how that compares to the league wide average, but I imagine its not that far from norm. The reason they moved it back was to take it out of the 99.99% range to something a little more 'exciting.'

Sgt. Largent":27bzzeiv said:

Meyers isn't going anywhere, he's got a 3M cap hit for 2020, and Pete doesn't want to continue the revolving door of kicker that's been going on here since Hauschka left.

Now maybe they'll draft a kicker late, or bring in a couple to push Meyers in camp. But this is a non discussion IMO, doesn't matter that Meyers underperformed this season.

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Pretty much this. He isn't going anywhere because of his contract. But I think a good draft strategy is to draft a punter or kicker every 3 years or so to keep talent coming. So that would be basically a kicker every 6 years and a punter every 6 years on a rotating basis.

HawkGA":11t6b1ga said:

Sgt. Largent":11t6b1ga said:

Meyers isn't going anywhere, he's got a 3M cap hit for 2020, and Pete doesn't want to continue the revolving door of kicker that's been going on here since Hauschka left.

Now maybe they'll draft a kicker late, or bring in a couple to push Meyers in camp. But this is a non discussion IMO, doesn't matter that Meyers underperformed this season.

Click to expand...

Pretty much this. He isn't going anywhere because of his contract. But I think a good draft strategy is to draft a punter or kicker every 3 years or so to keep talent coming. So that would be basically a kicker every 6 years and a punter every 6 years on a rotating basis.

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Plus, you can always drag a UDFA into camp. Hell, you could do that every year if you want. I have absolutely no problem with that. The Janikowski signing was a head scratcher to me, but that's water under the bridge. It seems like there are always out of work kickers out there dying to get a shot.

:229031_shrug:

sutz":1rfp8k6t said:

Appyhawk":1rfp8k6t said:

Is 4 ex pt misses an official stat? Seems low to me. I was thinking he missed 3 in one game but maybe it wa just 2 and I lumped in the missed FG.
Anyway I think Largent is right, at least for this year. We simply have too many other pressing needs when our guy is at least serviceable.
I will add that having exceptional kickers is underrated. Their impact on the game is why it is called football. Punters go far to establish field position while a good PK can put points on the board when an offense is struggling. It pays to get the best for those positions.

Click to expand...

I posted the link. It's from the nfl page. :229031_shrug:

http://www.nfl.com/player/jasonmyers/25 ... areerstats

Again, I don't know how that compares to the league wide average, but I imagine its not that far from norm. The reason they moved it back was to take it out of the 99.99% range to something a little more 'exciting.'

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This last year was like one of the worst year in decades for Kickers, having said that, I think the most exciting aspect of the game is the betting lounge on which play an official will turn over or not, they get more screen time then the players now days. 8)

$1.5M of his 2020 salary becomes fully guaranteed on February 7 so we'll learn pretty shortly how the team feels about him.

https://overthecap.com/player/jason-myers/4628/

A stellar kicking game is important in close, tight games. They don't matter in blowouts. Guess what type of games the Seahawks play? That's why an accurate kicker is more important here. Myers was overvalued by the Seahawks. Even though he had a MVP season in 2018 as a Jet, the season he had in 2019 is more of his norm. He is average at best and paying $3+M per year for an average kicker is absurd.

Kickers used to be a lot better..I can't believe how with supposed better conditioning
and training that they are this bad.
It must be that they are weak mentally and cannot handle pressure of kicking in the
clutch ect.

chrispy":33jy7wt0 said:

It seems like kickers that come to Seattle seem to do a little worse than they did previously. Maybe that's just the natural volatility of the numbers.

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We play outdoors in the cold, wind and rain. There are few stadiums more difficult to kick in (New Era Field, Soldier Field) and nobody gets as much as rain as we do.

And yes, there is also problem with the sample size. Myers only attempted seven field goals between 40-49 yards and just four field goals at 50+ yards. His accuracy on the season could have varied from 75% to 89% with just one or two different outcomes.