Kicker is the most overlooked and undervalued position in the NFL

The kicker position is a need for so many teams across the NFL right now and one of the most important and underappreciated positions in all of football.

They are often working on their own off to the side at practice. Their helmet hardly has a facemask and their pads are as thin as they can be. But one of the absolute most important positions in the NFL is the kicker.

Take a look at the leading scorers list for the history of the NFL. Who makes it up? Kickers. The first non-kicker? Jerry Rice at 37. Beyond the volume of scoring, the kicker is relied on to come through in the highest of pressure situations at the end of games. If they succeed, they did what they should have done. If for whatever reason they fail, the whole fan base wants their head.

Kickers get such a weird and mostly negative reputation in the football world, at all levels of competition. People think that kickers are somehow lesser members of the team just because they don’t participate in the same full-contact drills as most of the other players. But when it comes down to it, kickers are often the reason that teams win or lose ball games.

Take a look at all that Adam Vinatieri did for the Patriots during their dominant years in the early 2000’s. A 45-yard field goal in a blizzard to force overtime against the Raiders and another field goal to win it in the 2001 playoffs. A 48-yarder against the Rams in the final seconds of Super Bowl XXXVI to win it all.

Sure, Brady and Belichick were probably the most instrumental pieces of that dynasty, but if Vinatieri didn’t make clutch kick after clutch kick, they likely would not have six championships today.

People don’t often focus on that aspect of kickers. They like to acknowledge Cody Parkey‘s missed 43-yarder against the Eagles that would have advanced the Bears in the playoffs last season (a kick that was later ruled to have been blocked). Parkey was a Pro Bowl player as a rookie with the Eagles in 2014 and is now out of the league.

Or Blair Walsh‘s missed 27-yard “chip shot” that would have sent the Vikings past the Seahawks in the 2015/16 playoffs. Walsh was also a Pro Bowl selection as a rookie and additionally earned first-team All-Pro honors. Now, he is trying to find a place just to fight for a job, recently signing with the Falcons.

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Or this season, Chandler Catanzaro and his two missed preseason extra points and subsequent retirement. He didn’t miss a single extra point as a Jet in 2017 and is now hanging up his cleats at age 28. The NFL is a ruthless business.

Kicking is not an easy job to do and many fans and coaches take the position for granted. But it is clear that there aren’t many people who can kick at an NFL in-game level. With so many teams in search of a new option at kicker right now (Bears, Jets, Browns, Falcons to name a few), clearly it’s not as easy as people seem to think, or there would be at least 32 solid kickers and no one would have an issue.

That is simply not the case. There are only a handful of truly elite kickers, with only about another 20 or so that are reliable, starting options. Guys like Justin Tucker simply do not grow on trees. Not every franchise can have just two kickers over the course of 23 years like the Patriots.

Even coaches of teams with clear concerns at kickers still make comments taking the position for granted. Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens recently stated that they “need somebody that can put the ball between the two yellow poles.” Plainly, that is their job, sure. But it’s obviously not that simple.

Soccer player Carli Lloyd turned heads at Eagles practice by nailing multiple kicks including a 55-yard shot (with a snap and hold, too). Maybe thinking outside the box can help kicker-needy teams in their search. But can those people kick with pads on, 11 players attacking them, and the bright lights and pressure on them that comes with the NFL? Who knows…

Kickers play such a vital role on successful football teams and get next to none of the credit. Sure, the team will swarm them if they make a game-winning kick, but they’ll also shun them if they miss.

Being a kicker in the NFL is not only incredibly difficult, but extremely thankless. There’s no real “win” for a kicker. They either “do their job” or they’re on a flight back to their hometown rather than the team facility. They don’t get the benefit of the doubt or number of chances that other positions do.

More-so than any other position, a kicker puts their job on the line each and every time they trot out onto the field. A make gets them an attaboy. A miss gets them hateful messages on Twitter, scolding from their coaches and peers, and less sleep at night knowing they could be out of work in an instant.

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Kickers are some of the truest unsung heroes in football and deserve the credit that they earn when they excel. If it was as easy as putting the ball through the yellow posts, teams wouldn’t be drafting kickers in the second round or trading fifth-round picks for other teams’ back-ups. A truly reliable kicker is hard to come by and is becoming more and more of a luxury in the NFL today.

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