Yamahopper
Hall of Fame
Kickers are strange animals. Maybe his and the teams infatuation with a record field goal was his undoing.
Got no problem bringing him back for the minimum to compete.
Rams plan to have competition at kicker for next season/Wagoner
- Thread starter RamBill
- Start date
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Got no problem bringing him back for the minimum to compete.
I used to focus on only the short FGs, chalking the 50+ up to chance, but I was wrong. In this era you have to also start including beyond 50 as almost automatic, too. If you go down the list of kickers pretty much every single one was 6-8, 7-9, 4-5, 6-6, and so on from over 50 yards. The only one almost as bad as GZ over 50 yards was Gould at 4-10. GZ's 3-9 just doesn't cut it in today's game, and there's no excuse for him to be so bad over 50 yards with his leg strength.
Dieter the Brock
Fourth responder
There has to be a guy with the last name of Zendejas walking around out there somewhere...
I'm not going to waste my time going through each kickers stats on the year, but 50+ is pretty broad. Most kickers don't even get run out there for anything over 55 yards.
Blair Walsh for example, this seasons kicking champion, was 6-8 from 50+ but didn't attempt a single kick over 54 yards. In fact his makes were from 51, 52, 53, 53, 53, and 54 yards. Yeah I know GZ missed a couple from those ranges, but he also had two attempts of 63. He had one from 50 get blocked (again I think the blocking on the FG unit is to blame here), and a 52 yarder he missed was at that windy game in Baltimore where Keenum was having trouble completing passes let alone making a FG.
Whats that leave us with? The 2 misses I mentioned earlier, a 53 yarder against GB, and the 52 yarder against the 49ers this past weekend (while playing with a bum leg. Even the announcers noticed it with how shallow his kickoffs were).
Am I saying he is gods gift to kicking? Of course not, he does have hiccups and has consistency issues from time to time. With that in mind I don't think its worth kicking him to the curb over. He has RARE leg strength and people are taking that for granted. There is a reason there have only been 15 FGs made from over 60 yards, and GZ already has his name attached to two of those kicks in his 4 year career.
fearsomefour
Legend
Roman Snow
H.I.M.
Touché. I guess with your Avatar you are pretty invested in GZ. Thanks for the memory. I didn't realize how close to a disaster THAT kick was also. Watch it again. The left side blocking collapsed. Overtime. Niners. (Sound familiar?) I watched it twice. How did that guy NOT block that kick?
The kick, as usual, had plenty of distance. He tried his best to shank it, but it squeezed in the left upright. :rolllaugh:
Sorry. Couldn't resist. I'm actually a huge fan of Greg. He has just been frustrating.
Elmgrovegnome
Legend
Brian Schottenheimer might have the inside track for the Rams to go after Georgia's fine Kicker, Marshall Morgan, in the later rounds.
Haha but no you're actually right. He's been extremely inconsistent this year and if we had a kicker like Gostkowski we would be 10-6 at the very least. GZ never had to deal with pressure from the crowd in college and that was a gripe coming out. I just always liked the nicknames he got.
Oh, and I can't resist proving people wrong when they say "I've NEVER seen this guy do THIS before!" Because everyone knows, only siths deal in absolutes.
Too bad. I think we all had high hopes that GZ would be the Rams kicker for a decade + after his rookie season. Since then, my confidence in him has been spiraling downward. I expected him to miss most of the kicks he missed this year. A lot of them were very tough kicks, but that was why we all liked him in the first place right? At this point, I just don't trust him with the game on the line. Hopefully he can turn it around.
Nothing wrong with competition. We'll see if Greg can win it. Personally, I think he's been made a bit of a scapegoat this year. Most kickers have fragile confidence. Fisher did him a real disservice this year by forcing him to kick long field goal after long field goal. And worst of all, after Greg got injured, Fisher didn't IR him and stick with Hocker. He trotted him out week after week with an injury and asked him to attempt quite a few long field goals in crucial situations.
Some will say, "whatever, that's his job." Yep, it is. But most coaches try to put their players in a position to succeed. Fisher hung Greg out to dry this year. Prior to this year, Greg had been money in clutch situations. Hopefully, Greg gets his confidence back, gets healthy, wins the competition, and the offense is actually good enough that he's not constantly being forced to kick long field goals.
Some will say, "whatever, that's his job." Yep, it is. But most coaches try to put their players in a position to succeed. Fisher hung Greg out to dry this year. Prior to this year, Greg had been money in clutch situations. Hopefully, Greg gets his confidence back, gets healthy, wins the competition, and the offense is actually good enough that he's not constantly being forced to kick long field goals.
Totally agree on this.
In a way, it reminds me of the Josh Brown situation. Rams foolishly spent a bundle on him, and because the team was so bad, he had very few opportunity to shine. So when he did miss, it seemed so crucial. When he was let go, it was a relief and now he's doing just fine kicking for the Giants
I agree that the infatuation with his big leg has been a detractor and maybe some competition can straighten him out. If not, he wont be the first talented kicker replaced, nor will he be the last
Roman Snow
H.I.M.
