So in other words, he’s almost as good as Janikowski?
Right now, he’s not even that. He’s almost as good of a prospect as Janikowski was. We won’t know how good he really is until next January.
The point was that Sea Bass sucked for 2-3 years. If Nugent isn’t as good, og help you.
I don’t fault the Jets at all for taking Nugent late 2nd. He’s kicked in snow and rain, he gets good distance on his kickoffs and he’s clutch on the FGs. he was heads and shoulders above the next kicker in this class – I heard all along he’d be a day one prospect, and given the Jets need for a kicker it makes sense to me.
Considering that they ended up with Justin Miller anyway, I don’t see how you can find fault with the Nugent pick. I don’t know if they really figured they’d be able to get Miller down there, but they must have considered it more likely that Nugent would be gone than all the corners they liked. They had (at least) two glaring needs entering the draft, had no first rounder, and they still filled them both with great players.
Put it this way - if you were the Jets, would you have traded a second-round pick for a good-to-excellent placekicker about three months ago?
Probably. But Mike Nugent isn’t a good-to-excellent placekicker, he’s a prospect. He is a gamble, as is everyone in the draft.
Kickers drafted in rounds 1-3 who were successful as rookies
Nate Kaeding
Who were mediocre as rookies:
Jason Hanson
Doug Brien
Jason Elam
Who sucked as rookies
Janikowski
Brett Conway
Chip Lohmiller
Jeff Jaeger
John Lee
Steve McLaughlin
The problem, as I noted above is that K/P are the only positions where you are forced to keep your mistakes in the starting lineup. If Nugent sucks in the first 8 games, you have 3 choices: 1) release him, wasting a draft pick 3) bench him and bring in someone else, wasting a roster spot or 3) keep playing him, going into the stretch with an unreliable kicker. Never a good gamble.
I think that’s the nature of the game. You need to have a good punter and a good kicker. A punter can help you in field position and kicker can do the same with kickoffs, as well as field goals. They’re such specialist positions that you have got to find a good one and if means drafting a K/P high, I say to do it. I’d say that the Broncos are in trouble this year–Knorr had major trouble last year and he’s gone, and they’ve now got Jason Baker. Now, Baker isn’t bad, though he keeps bouncing around the league. And Elam is old and doesn’t do kickoffs. Don’t get me wrong, there aren’t many kickers I’d rather have than Elam, but the age could be a problem with injury. So the Broncos need a really good punter who can also make good kickoffs, assuming they don’t keep Fredrickson around (which would be a mistake in my opinion.) Of course, Fredrickson has never even kicked a field goal in a game, so they’re giving up a roster spot just for kickoffs. Assuming that you only have one kicker and one punter, punter is not an easy position to fill with a kickoff requirement.
One point I think you’re missing is this: How many of these guys turned out o be complete busts? None. You’re arguing how smart it was to take a kicker with a 2nd rounder. Looking at this list, whether they were decent as rookies is relevant, but not the point of the draft. The draft isn’t a short-term prospect. If you broke down the list of second round QB/RB/CBs or any other position over the last 20 years, you’d find a group littered with total busts, hell some guys didn’t end make the NFL after 2 years. Drafying a kicker is only stupid if that kicker would have been available a round or two later or as a undrafted FA, otherwise it’s a good pick.
Not that I necessarily disagree with your point, but Martin Gramatica was taken in the third round by the Bucs out of Kansas State with the 80th overall pick. You could make a case that his rookie season (1999) was his best season. He was 84.4% on FGAs, 100% on EPs, made 27 FGs for the season, including 3 of 4 from 50+ yards. Don’t know what your “success criteria” were.
What’s the big deal if he chokes? It’s not like that would be a change from what they had last year. By all accounts, if you wanted a kicker, this was the best guy available. There isn’t a scout in the country who would disagree. This isn’t a Ryan Leaf/Peyton Manning scenario, or even last year’s Manning/Rivers/Roethlisberger situation, where there were differing opinions on who would be the better player. Nugent was unanimously considered the best.
The Jets, simply put, took the best kicker available to fill a glaring need on their roster. To suggest that it will have been shown to be a bad move if the kicker doesn’t perform is picking nits of the highest order.
Now, a much more valid - and relevant - complaint about Nugent is that Herm, already much too conservative, will be even more likely to kneel the ball twice and try a 50 yard game winner. That’s the real downside.
It reminds me of the controversy last year on NY radio immediately after the divisional game. Herm was quoted as saying that plenty of coaches would have done the same thing. He really dug himself into a hole with the particulars: (paraphrased)
“Bill Cowher called nothing but running plays on their last drive, and kicked the game winner. Marty Schottenheimer called runs and a field goal against us last week. And then you look at a guy like Bill Belichick, who called a pass on 4th and got stopped.”
After playing that natural sound, the sports guys on the WFAN went out of their minds. (paraphrased) “Where’s Cowher’s Superbowl rings? Where’s Marty’s Lombardi trophy? Belichick is a proven winner. You should point to him as an example of what you are supposed to do, you idiot!”
You’re talking out of your ass. Three were total busts; two more were only good later, and for teams other than the one that drafted them.
Shibb – you’re correct, I missed Gramatica; he was an unqualified success (Kaeding was the only other one above 75%)
And the point is that the scouts ALWAYS overestimate how accurate their predictions are and Mel Kiper is wrong most of the time.
Every single kicker on that list was “the best guy availible.”
Russell Erxleben was the “greatest college kicker ever”
Tony Franklin was the “greatest college kicker ever”
Kicking is by its nature unpredictable: its all about confidence and rhythym. Every draft pick is a crapshoot; the trick is to do the best you can and play the odds.
Let’s say you bring in Martin Gramatica (or any of the other widely-availible kickers); he’s had success in the past, let’d give him a 50% chance of being a success. But guess what: you’re paying him squat, and his bonus is small. If he starts 3-for-8 and costs you a game, you can dump him and try someone else. In other words, his downside is minimized.
Let’s say Nugent has a 65% chance of success; that’s better, right? Except that if he does fail, if he starts 3-for-8, you’re married to him. He sucks and he’s probably going to suck all year long. But you’re stuck with him because you invested a 2nd round pick and also the cap hit … so you do not have the option of trying someone else. You’re stuck with the SOB.
Given the nature of the position, it’s nuts to make a long-term committment to a completely unknown quantity. Which is true for virtually every early round pick; but the difference is that if, say, a CB isn’t good enough to start, he still has some value: he can play on nickel formations or on special teams. And above all, he at least won’t actively hurt your team while he takes a year or two to learn. A bad kicker will.
That’s probably true for every position.
I was thinking about how we get all hyped up about the draft, but it’s really impossible to know, in the short term, how good a draft is. So I went to the NFL archives and pulled up draft info from five years ago. I’m going to just look at Round 1 and pull out some names that stick out at me, but I’d be interested if you look at your team in the rear-view mirror, how do you think you did? And do you remember how you think they did at the time? (We really need to keep these threads for posterity)
2000 NFL Draft Round 1:
1 Cleveland Courtney Brown DE Penn State
2 Washington LaVar Arrington OLB Penn State
3 Washington Chris Samuels T Alabama
4 Cincinnati Peter Warrick WR Florida State
5 Baltimore Jamal Lewis RB Tennessee
6 Philadelphia Corey Simon DT Florida State
7 Arizona Thomas Jones RB Virginia
8 Pittsburgh Plaxico Burress WR Michigan State
9 Chicago Brian Urlacher MLB New Mexico
10 Baltimore Travis Taylor WR Florida
11 N.Y. Giants Ron Dayne RB Wisconsin
12 N.Y. Jets Shaun Ellis DE Tennessee
13 N.Y. Jets John Abraham DE South Carolina
14 Green Bay Bubba Franks TE Miami
15 Denver Deltha O'Neal CB California
16 San Francisco Julian Peterson OLB Michigan State
17 Oakland Sebastian Janikowski K Florida State
18 N.Y. Jets Chad Pennington QB Marshall
19 Seattle Shaun Alexander RB Alabama
20 Detroit Stockar McDougle T Oklahoma
21 Kansas City Sylvester Morris WR Jackson State
22 Seattle Chris McIntosh T Wisconsin
23 Carolina Rashard Anderson CB Jackson State
24 San Francisco Ahmed Plummer CB Ohio State
25 Minnesota Chris Hovan DT Boston College
26 Buffalo Erik Flowers DE Arizona State
27 N.Y. Jets Anthony Becht TE West Virginia
28 Indianapolis Rob Morris MLB Brigham Young
29 Jacksonville R. Jay Soward WR Southern California
30 Tennessee Keith Bulluck OLB Syracuse
31 St. Louis Trung Canidate RB Arizona
Overall, a lot better than I thought. I’ve heard of most of those guys; some are stars while others have been disappointing. And note that the Raiders could have picked up Chad Pennington or Shaun Alexander, but decided to go with Janikowski instead.
Some second round names that pop out at me:
Cleveland - Dennis Northcutt - Cleveland
Philadelphia - Todd Pinkston
Denver - Kenoy Kennedy
Oakland - Jerry Porter (Maybe a better pick than Janikowski?)
Indianapolis - Marcus Washington
Third round:
Tennessee - Erron Kinney
N.Y. Jets - Laveranues Coles
Detroit - Reuben Droughns
Nobody really jumped out at me from the fourth round.
Round 5
Green Bay - Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila
Kansas City - Dante’ Hall
Round 6
New Orleans - Marc Bulger
Denver - Mike Anderson
New England - Tom Brady
Not a bad sixth round for a few teams.
Round 7
San Francisco - Tim Rattay
Of course, there are probably a lot of down linemen or defensive guys out there on other teams that I’m not familiar with. The Bucs didn’t have a first that year, I think they traded two that they had for Keyshawn Johnson. It seemed like a good deal at that time, but looking at how that class turned out, if you let me pick one from the top of the first round and one from the bottom, then Keyshawn was definitely a mistake. They took Cosey Coleman with their second which was not great but not a total disaster. He has been hurt a lot but a functional (mostly) starter.
But at least we didn’t draft Ron Dayne that year.
Well, I admit to not bothering to look up the names I didn’t recognize (Lee and McLoughlin) which did turn out to be busts, I think you’re being overly harsh on the rest. Conway’s career never took off after a rough rookie season, but when he had chances he was consistent. Not sure I’d call him a total bust, though he underachieved. The rest I think had excellent to above average careers, the stats at pro-football-reference back this up.
Still, unles you’re the Rams it appears that drafting a top-flight kicker pans out at a much higher rate than any other position.
*<…grumble grumble muttered obscenity grumble…> *
I knew that one was going to hurt somebody, just couldn’t remember who. Sorry.
Really, really, sorry.
Hey, who’s complaining? He did a terrific job last year…
…in preseason. :: resumes grumbling ::
Wow, I never noticed how incredibly productive that draft was. All in all, there’s hardly any complete Mandarich caliber busts. Dayne is the closest thing to it (though he was productive for a couple seasons), and Courtney Brown needs to step up still, but top to bottom teams did an excellent job in that draft.
I’d be willing to accept that taking a kicker in the first round if is a bad idea when you consider the likelyhood of first rounders panning out at other positions. However, when you go to the second round its a total crap shoot. I’d say on a quick look that less than half of those 2nd rounders cracked into starting lineups and stayed there. Some were stars and pro bowlers, but just as many are benchwarmers or worse.
Using that as a measuring stick, if you can decide that “top rated” kickers pan out at a better than 50/50 rate in the second round then it’s not a really poor pick and the odds are in your favor compared to other positions.
I’m not. HA-HA! The Giants suck! They’re big doodyheads! Nyah! Nyah!
Okay. Now that that’s been said, I freely acknowledge the dominance of the Giants over the Vikings in the past few years. But this year will be different.
I hope.
I knew immediately which draft you were talking about, as it has been a topic of discussion on the giants.com messageboards.
He’s going to be the ultimate example of Boomer’s “former Giant, now good” classification. (Along with Tyrone Wheatley and Joe Jeruvicious. (sp?)) I do hope he has a breakout year with the Broncos, assuming he manages to make the 53 man roster. (That’s a big if.)
But c’mon, how can you say he was a bad pick? What were we going to do; take a total scrub like Shaun Alexander? (FUCK!!!)
Once they jettisoned Dayne, (finally,) the Giants had purged every player they drafted in 2000. I wouldn’t have minded keeping Brandon Short around, and even Dhani Jones had some ability. Ron Dixon’s body finally gave out and he retired. I liked Ralph Brown. I’m pretty sure the other two didn’t last more than two years in the league. All in all, 2000 was not our best year. Hell, 2001 wasn’t so hot either. (That was the year we picked up the two Wills.) EA didn’t really start producing decent drafts until 2002. I’ve been very pleased the last few years, although I will be closely watching William Joseph to see if he finally steps up this year. (Even if he doesn’t, Osi is so good as to make up for a first round bust.)