Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Steve Suisham - Graham Gano makes the Show

I'm sure you saw it on Sunday. The Washington Redskins had the New Orleans Saints on the ropes. The Saints perfect season hung in the balance. The Skins were up seven at home, and all kicker Steve Suisham had to do was hit a 23-yard field goal to put the game away. And he missed. The Saints were able to tie the game and ended up winning in overtime.

Tuesday the Skins cut Suisham, which they had to do because missing kicks like that will cost someone their job, and signed former Seminole and Groza Award winner Graham Gano to a three-year deal.

This is the part I don't understand, why aren't kickers just signed week to week? If you have a good one liek Adam Vinatieri or David Akers I can see signing them for an extended period of time, but not some of these other guys who never seem to make anything of note.

And further, why haven't the Bucs brought Matt Bryant back? He spent this season kicking in the UFL for the Florida Tuskers while the Bucs three kickers have combined to make only 50% of their field goal attempts. At some point, the Bucs need to bury the hatchet and bring back the successful kicker.

2 comments:

Steve said...

Nate. C'mon man. Matt Bryant? You're writing about Matty B? You want to know the reason he's not the kicker for the Bucs? It's because he couldn't hit anything over 40 yards last season. His UFL stats this season are 11/14 with a 41 long. That doesn't cut it in the league. The Bucs' new kicker is Connor Barth. Just in the game a few weeks back against Miami, he hit 3 50+ yard field goals. You're killing me with this kicker talk.

Nate said...

The Bucs are on kicker #3 and Barth missed a pivotal field goal. Now granted Freeman blew a lot of chances in the red zone, but the Bucs really needed him to make that kick