According to you, Vinatieri is not a great kicker and Nugent is not a great kicker...please enlighten us as to who is a great kicker in the NFL right now. I think Vinatieri is an outstanding kicker and Nugent is shaping up to be the same. Some people have complained that Nugent hasn't hit a big kick yet...but what opportunity has he had? He kicked the game winning fg in miami (like he was supposed to do) and made all of his playoff kicks (like he was supposed to do). How can you fault a kid for not getting the opportunity? Why do we assume he can't kick under the pressure just because he hasn't had a chance yet? He seemed to handle the big kicks just fine at osu so I would think that would make you believe he CAN handle the pressure until something happens to prove otherwise.
David Akers is a great kicker. Vinatieri is a good FG kicker, but he's not among the best kickoff men in the game, which is what we're talking about here.
Yep, I'm sold on Nugent as a clutch FG kicker at this point but his kickoffs leave a lot to be desired. The Jets should be looking for a player who plays another role who has a huge leg for kickoffs. I'm even wondering why they don't look at Graham, even though it's a kind of kicking that he has no experience with. He has a huge leg.
There should be no reason at all why Graham isn't working on kicking the ball off everyday duing the offseason and into training camp. It would be a shame to have to waste a roster spot on a kickoff specialist but it is clear something needs to be done about it for next year.
The Jets kickoff coverage has been pretty good for the most part this season. I think the Jets are looking for the angled kicks to the 5-10 with Nugent rather then the booming shots into the EZ. Of course when he lets off the occasional bad one the ball ends up at the 20 and people are calling for his head. For whatever reason yesterday the coverage did not seem to be getting downfield quickly of stopping the Pats returner at first contact.
My thoughts exactly. It seemed like they were forming a wall around the 30. I only remember one occasion where they broke through the thirty to put a hit on the returner.
