It’s Time To Get Rid of Kickers in Football

I always used to get irritated by the people who insisted football would be better without kickers.  However, after this weekend’s NFL games, I finally understand where they are coming from and now share their frustration. 

No, I am not a Raiders or Saints fan, but I have watched kickers for my teams ruin plenty of games, and I am sick of watching this garbage take place.  A kicker has one damn job.  Kick the ball through the goal posts.  These players get paid way too much money for this simple job, so you would think with enough practice this should be automatic – just like free throws in basketball.

If you did not get to catch the action from this weekend, you missed two teams work their asses off to set up their kicker for game winning field goals only to watch these turds miss and send the ACTUAL players into the locker rooms pissed off and their fans home crying, calling for their coaches’ job. 

In the Raiders/Cardinals game, Sebastian Janikowski missed three field goals in the 24-23 loss.  His third miss was the real kick in the nuts to all Raider fans and players.  With four seconds left on the clock he shanked a 32 yarder, a distance that ole’ Sebass is normally automatic from.  The Raiders desperately needed a win to get off the schneid, but it was not to be courtesy of their KICKER.   

Meanwhile, the real f**k up of the day came from the foot of New Orleans Saints kicker, Garett Hartley.  After being the hero and sending the game into overtime, Sean Peyton elected to go with his field goal unit from the 11-yard line (29 yard field goal) only to watch his KICKER miss the chip shot, wide left, and send the team home with a loss in a hard fought game.  Judging from his profile picture, he may have used a bit too much hair product that caused his equilibrium to be off just enough to muff the kick.

The game of football would be perfectly fine, if not better, without field goal kickers.  The scores would be higher because teams would be forced to go for it on fourth down, overtimes would be decided by touchdowns, not the first person to win the coin toss and kick a field goal. Annoying goal posts would be eliminated, and fantasy football owners would be much happier to draft an actual player rather than wasting a pick on a kicker.  Teams could still find position players for the kickoffs and punts since special teams are such an important and exciting part of the game now.  This may sound crazy to some of you old school guys, but just wait until your kicker misses a shot to put your team into the playoffs or against a rival, then we’ll talk.