Supposedly, he was kicking the ground before the ball and that's why the ball kept going right. I see no reason why that can't be fixed.
Nate Kaeding started last year off similarly, but bounced back finish to finish the year off with an 87 kicking percentage. Hopefully Nugent will too
I see no reason why he was doing it in the first place. He's kicked a million FGs in his life and now he starts hitting the ground. Sounds strange to me, but what do I know. As for booing; he misses a short kick on Sunday you can be assured that I will be one of the 75,000 letting him know we are not happy....
Well then, why didn't he fix it? This is what the guy does, he kicks the ball. So you would think he would know how to do it going in. Ya know, mini camp, training camp, practice......... Like, lets say a guy is a printer, for example, and you order something from him and it comes back all messed up. Do you say, well, it's certainly correctible if he lines up his margins? NO, you assume he will know this going in, so you don't pay him and fire his a$$. Same concept here. If he misses a 30 yarder on Sunday, it's audition time....and I don't care if the crowd is booing when he runs in, if the field is too damp, too dry. Make the kick or begone, Nuge! You can find a guy kicking for the Australian national team that can make 30 yarders, and Mangini probably knows him too.
From my understanding, he had an extremely heavy week of kickoffs. I think the new regime was trying to get him ready for a better year of kickoffs. However, that takes a toll on the leg. When his leg gets tired he tends to kick the ground more. However, you will never hear him make an excuse about it...he doesn't believe in excuses. I agree with the previous post in that kicking is a lot like golf. I played golf in college and would often have heavy weeks of practice. Then, by the time the tournament arrived, my swing was a little tired and I couldn't get it consistent. I think that was part of the problem with nuge. Plus, like in golf, it's hard to fix something in the middle of the game. I have all the confidence in the world that he will turn it around. After his freshman year, the fans wanted to take his scholarship at Ohio State. He got pissed off and proved them all wrong. I hope that happens again here. Just like his freshman year he is making no excuses. If he gets off to a good start this weekend I say we all give him a nice cheer. Make him feel at home like the fans at OSU did when they would chant "nuuuuggeeee". The fans were so confident in him there that in the Marshall game the stadium started chanting his name when the offense got the ball back with one minute to go on their own 20. He kicked an inspired game winning 55 yarder. Let's give him that same support when he gets off to a good start this week.
His foot scuffing the ground is a concern. It's got to do with mechanics, which is something he should be a bit beyond at this point in his career after having kicked hundereds of times in Ohio. Unless there's a definite, concrete connection between the misses and the dragging of the foot (i.e., he was wearing a different shoe, the playing field in the middle at the 30-35 yard line is extremely uneven, etc.) then Houston, we could have a problem. It's a little too late for us to be getting inside the guy's head about why he's unconciously dragging his foot or blowing his nose or farting while kicking. He'll be kicking on the hard, smooth surface on Sunday at Giants stadium, under ideal weather conditions. If he blows kicks in that environment, he's toast.
I really like this post and I hope the fans get behind him and support him big time. I'm extremely interested in your take on the leg and too much practice. This isn't the first time he's had "tired leg" and maybe it's just as simple as that. Let's hope so.
That's interesting, so are you suggesting he kicks less this week to fix the problem; rather just rest the leg? Just sounds counterintuitive to me. We will see, I'm all for supporting him if he does his part....
I'm not sure I am reading it correctly, but I do agree that his leg has been tired in the past. That's the way he knows his tendancy to hit the ground when it gets tired. I just hope he tells them this time so they will cut back on the kickoffs a little to see if that is the cause (like he did not tell him last year when is foot was completely black from Westhoff insisting on extra kickoffs). In my opinion, there is no risk in doing that from the coach's standpoint because if it doesn't help then you can do what everyone else is calling for and cut him. However, if it does help you may find out a solution to the hitting the ground. I mean let's face it...there is not a person in the jet's orginization who understands kicking. He had a bad warmup and there was no one to turn to for advice. At least when I would have a bad warmup in college my coach would be standing behind me fixing it. So i'm just saying let's give him some support and hope he figures it out. He's a part of our team and seems to be the type of personality everyone is looking for. He doesn't make excuses, work's his ass off, etc. Now we just need a few down the middle.
Tired Leg??? Do me a favour. For gods sake how many Kicks is he making to make his leg drop off? For my money his head was tired , not his leg. Get with it Noooge
Maybe a better way of saying it would be to compare it to a running. You want to work your butt off in the training up to the week of the event. However, when the week of the event arises you take it a little bit easier so that on race day your legs are completely rested. Even if you are running great in the week leading up to the race you don't want to kill yourself because it actually makes it worse. I think kicking with a tired leg is somewhat similar. The Jet's should spend the off-season strengthing his leg on kickoffs etc. However, when it comes to the middle of the season, they should be working on being 100% for the game. Now perhaps the kickoffs last week in practice were to work on the coverage team and not Mike's leg strength (i'm not sure), but it definitely makes a leg tired. Hopefully that helps explain what I was trying to say.
If his head was tired he wouldn't have missed every kick in warmups right. He would have been perfect in warmups and awful in the game. If anyone was at the game they would have seen that practically every kicked missed right.
If he has tired leg in week 1 then he's not the guy for us. I watch other teams. The kicker kicks the ball off down to the goal line. Then on 4th down at the 15 yard line he runs in and kicks a 32 yard FG. It's been like this for years. Way before HD, even before color TV, only then it was a 22 yard FG.
You have come as close as anyone's take on this board as to what the problem could be. In fact, it sounds like you've hit the nail on the head. Last August, while I was waiting outside The Netherlands with my infamous autograph ball to see who who was coming out, I looked across the street and saw a young man approaching at the intersection. He was walking all alone and in flip-flops. As he approached the sidewalk, no one paid any attention because his physical stature would be considered quite small for a football player. But I noticed who he was immediately and was the first to get his signature on my football. Nuge signs with what can best be described as a cartoon of some uprights with a ball passing through the middle. My immediate reaction while talking to him was how small he is. He's in excellent shape, mind you, but has little or no "bulk." I think, if he's been practicing endless amounts of distance kicks, it's quite possible his leg is dragging, just like you say, because he's tired. I've always felt Nugent needs a little more "ass," in other words, some beef. I can't imagine how a smallish guy can kick long distance shots accurately, yet, that's exactly what he was doing at Ohio State. And then again, I know very little about kickers. So perhaps this is the problem and we have a kicker who will never be able to kick consistent, long-distance, John Hall-like boomers into the end zone on kickoffs. But there's got to be a place in the NFL for a guy who has (and I certainly hope the word isn't "had") a lot of accuracy on FG attempts. Has any team ever had a kicker who only kicks PAT's and FG's but does not kick off? Reggie Roby, where are you?
I still think he can give you the distance. He is definitely a small kid in stature, but he works endlessly to put on weight. Unfortunately, he got mono in the off season and lost 15 pounds. However, most of it is back on him now due to his crazy workout regime the past few months. I'm not saying you will get a John Hall...i'm just saying that if you typically expect a kicker to kick 10 kickoffs for you in practice, that is what his leg is used to. Then, if week before the 1st game, you have him kick 40 each day, the leg is going to be tired. I would imagine he can build up to kicking that much, but the drastic change makes it hard. I doubt he will ever boot it ten yards deep into the endzone, but he will give you plenty of distance. His kickoffs were much better last week, but it was hard for anyone to tell because of his other problems. All I'm saying is that rather than say the kid is awful and he should be killed along with his family (not that you ever did 227), maybe we should try to figure out why he had a bad game and encourage him to do better. He's not happy with his performance and we damn well know he is trying to fix it.
He shouldn't get booed in introductions, but if he misses an easy one next week he is going to hear it unfortunately.
I can agree with not booing him right away. However, one bad kick, and his ass is done. There's no room for this kind of performance. If it was this tired leg thing, then fine. The CS will have to identify that and make it better. However, he does not only just kick short KOs, but he kicks them low as well. That's a formula for disaster. If it at least has hang time, then it's okay. However, if you are kicking line drives to the 10, you are just playing with fire. Eventually a decent return guy is going to get that motor running before the STers get there, and he will smoke us. Also, it's not like he just missed two perfectly hittable FGs. He missed a PAT. Kickers are not supposed to miss the point after. That's indefensable. If it were just the missed FGs, or just a pissed extra point, okay, we would not be having calls for his head. But he blew three chances on what should be easy for someone of his pedigree. He either needs to get it together immediately, or pack his stuff.
im not worried about Nugent bouncing back from his horrible game, i was worried that he wouldnt bounce back in the middle of the game, which he didnt...i kidna had that feeling, but i think he will be fine, he knows ifhe screws up again and hes out
