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Originally Posted by That Guy
akers and vinetari and stover stuck around forever. janikowski, anderson... some kickers are just good.
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Well I mean there are a few guys that stick around and have long sucessful careers but what what I've seen kickers can fall from grace pretty quickly. Take Mike Vanderjagt for instance. He was one of the best kickers in the league. Misses one field goal in the postseason (on top of a drunk comment on TV) and gets released. Tries out for Dallas and gets replaced near the end of the season. Never heard from again in the NFL.
And I mean not only did he fall from grace but his last year in the league was simply brutal.
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Vanderjagt suffered a groin injury that kept him out of action for two weeks. He returned in the final preseason game against the Minnesota Vikings. In that game, he missed two field goals in overtime of 32 and 33 yards (both misses were wide right), forcing the game to end in a tie. Rumors quickly spread that Vanderjagt would be released by the Cowboys before the regular season began. However, he remained with the team. He was replaced by back-up kicker Shaun Suisham in the first game of the season against Jacksonville, but appeared in each of the Cowboys' subsequent games through Week 12. In Week 9, his potential game-winning field goal was blocked by the Washington Redskins as time expired. In Week 11 against his former team, the Colts, he missed his only two field goal attempts, (both of these misses were also wide right) making it the first time since 2001 since he had done so. The fans were so upset, they booed a commercial he appeared in on stadium monitors. On November 27, 2006, Vanderjagt was released by the Cowboys and replaced by Martín Gramática.
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But to reiterate yeah there are definitely a handful of quality kickers that stay on top for a good while. But for every Adam Vinitari it feels like there are 3 or 4 Neil Rackers.