OT: Bears not the only team to be 'bitten' by a kicker

[Les Grossman]

The parallels to Parkey are pretty stellar; just a little reference material regarding Pace and the flack he gets for signing Parkey. Also, goes to show that kickers can turn to utter shit from season to season.

...
Instead, the Steelers signed Boswell, at the time a 24-year-old kicker from Rice who was coming off brief stints with the Texans and Giants. It proved to be a smart choice. From 2015 to 2017 Boswell made 89.5 percent of his field goals in the regular season and was a perfect 15-for-15 in the playoffs. After the 2017 season, Boswell made the Pro Bowl— an accomplishment that not even Reed achieved. On the eve of the 2018 season, Pittsburgh signed Boswell to a new five-year deal worth about $20 million, making him one of the highest-paid kickers in the league.

This past season Boswell made only 65 percent of his field goals and missed five extra points. Some of those bad kicks proved important—they likely cost the Steelers at least two wins ..

The Steelers finished the season 9-6-1, one win short of the postseason. They probably would’ve made the playoffs had Boswell made even just one or two of those kicks.
...


Also, as an aside, this is exactly what I'd picture Jeff Reed doing these days lol:

"For what it’s worth, Reed believes he could have helped Boswell through his 2018 struggles. Reed works in the CBD industry now, but he coaches high school kickers in his spare time. "

https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/05/10/p...ell-missed-field-goals-extra-points-jeff-reed

 

[dabears70]

Last year was a bad year for multiple kickers. Some of the better ones out there had bad games and in Boswell's case games. Gostkowski had a game that he missed a field goal and a extra point, M.Crosby has a game where he was 1-5 in field goals and 2 games that he missed extra points and we know about Boswell. Kicker are like relievers in baseball to where they're very fickle unless you find one of the great ones and even they have bad games every so often.

 

[Mdbearz]

Justin Tucker is just about as automatic as they get, and he had 2 games last year where he missed some kicks and an extra point, not because of wind or hold or snap or anything, and they were bad missed, but luckily they did not cost the Ravens the game.

However in Baltimore they have a kicking specialist on the coaching staff (better than just a consultant), that was able to help him figure out what was going on and fix it....

Even the best kickers WILL go through a slump, and all we can hope for is that it is short, and that we have the right people in place to help our new kicker.