I knew I had seen a Flutie kick…
Other dual or more roles:
William The Refrigerator Perry (more of a gimmick, actually)
Prime Time Deion Sanders (also played baseball, as did Bo and even Michael J)
That guy who plays for the Bears as a DB or safety, WR, and has 18 or so kick return (punt and kickoff) TDs, Devin Hester
Coffin Corner King Ray Guy is still my fave punter. Pity he played for the Raiders.
Michael Koenen handles punts and kickoffs for Tampa Bay while Ryan Lindell kicks the field goals and extra points.
Talking about kicking and skill sets and such…
Seems appropriate to sharethis video…
To put into perspective what he just did -
Zin Zan Brooke (the guy that kicked the goal) is roughly the rugby equivalent to one of those guys that line up to protect the quarterback - (at he start of the video you can see him in the “scrum” - which I think the football equivalent is the line of scrimmage where the ball is snapped?)
Kordell Stewart’s kick with the Steelers was a “pooch” from right around mid-field, but I can’t recall if it was a quick kick (which I would define as a kick on third down from the shotgun) or not. If i recall correctly, it was a fourth down play, he was in the shotgun, and pooched a punt over the first wave of defenders. I guess it would be "quick kick if you define one as just coming from the shotgun regardless of down, but whatever… It isn’t very relevant.
I don’t know what he did with the Ravens, and I am surprised that he only did it once for the Steelers, since my memory of that play seems so vivid. Maybe they showed it a bunch of times when they were discussing the “Slash” nickname. Funny what the mind remembers.
Bradshaw, on the other hand DID substitute for the Steeler’s punter on a full time basis for a game or two. I believe the 1970 kicks replaced Bobby Walden, an old guy who wore number 39 and looked nothing like a football player. He was old looking when he was 12, I suspect.
The 1980 kicks were for an injured Craig Colquitt? i’m going on memory here, so I could be wrong. But yeah, Bradshaw subbed for the punter when the Steelers didn’t want to put the guy on IR.
Wyoming had a guy in the 90’s who did both. As I recall he ended up in Canadian football doing both, and was pretty good at both. I don’t remember if he got drafted or even a tryout for either in the NFL though.
Flutie would hold for FGs and extra points in the CFL for the Stampeders. Not sure about any of his other teams in various leagues.
Someday, I am going to learn the rules for Rugby. I don’t understand the game at all, other than some basic, “one team goes east, one goes west” kinds of stuff. I get the goal line, the kick between the posts, but this game is just so strange to me. I’ve been able to pick up almost any game by watching it either in person or on TV, and that includes ice hockey. I’ve watched rugby matches in person and on TV, and still have only a rudimentary understanding of it.
I follow CFL football (though not nearly as intently as I do NFL football), and it does seem like it’s not uncommon for a single player to handle both duties for a CFL team. I don’t know if it’s due to smaller roster sizes, or some other reason, but it is an interesting difference from the NFL.
He’s wirey.
Of course this doesn’t deal with the fact that teams point fat too often.
Best example currently is Paul MCallum, who does all the kicking for BC, and used to do all the kicking when he was a Rider.
I think the difference is that the CFL roster is smaller, in the 40’s, I believe, plus there’s the requirement to balance the team with imports and Canadians, so having MCCallum as a non-import playing both roles is very helpful.
Saskatchewan has alternated. Currently, they have two kickers, but last year they started out with just one. When he didn’t do too well on points and kick-offs, they brought in a place kicker.
I think LaFontaine handles all kicks for the Argos?
I sort of follow the Argos, after attending one of their games when I visited Toronto last summer. It looks like their kicker/punter is now a guy named Swayze Waters (an import, who tried and failed to catch on with three different NFL teams).
Waters finished the season as the Argos’ specialist, but he was on the injured list for the first part of the season. While Waters was hurt, they had Noel Prefontaine as their kicker/punter, but it looks like they let him go after Waters got healthy, sometime mid-season.
Erxleben was a superb place kicker AND punter here in Austin, for the University of Texas. It’s possible that he’d have done fine in both roles with the Saints, but along came Morten Andersen who was a much better long-range place kicker. That meant Erxleben was relegated to punting only.
The guy was very smart… maybe a little TOO smart for his own good. Last I heard, he was in prison for fraud. He was a financial advisor who fleeced a lot of his clients.
More recently, Danny White used to punt for the Cowboys and Dan Pastrorini used to punt for the Houston Oilers.
In the old days, there weren’t any kicking or punting specialists. One of the regular position players generally handled those duties. Even in the Sixties, I remember that defensive lineman Lou Michaels did the kicking for the Baltimore Colts and running back Paul Hornung was place kicker for the Packers.
But by 1969 or 1970, almost every team had one guy who specialized in punting and one guy who specialized in place kicking.
See posts 21 and 24
Speaking of Michael Koenen and Morten Andersen…
At the start of 2006, Atlanta tried to use Koenen as a punter/kicker. Unfortunately for him, he started the season 2/8 on field goals. Atlanta then signed Andersen (at age 46!) to kick; Koenen went back to punting and kickoffs, along with the rare long FG that Andersen couldn’t kick anymore.
One other punter that tried long field goals in place of a decrepit kicker: Craig Hentrich for Gary Anderson sometime in the early-mid 2000s. It seems like that used to happen more often, but I can’t think of a punter more recent than Koenen to try a long, non-emergency FG.
Gary Collins was the punter and a wide receiver for the Browns from 1962 to 1971. He was their first line punter from 1962 to 1967, and primary long receiver from 1963 to 69 (except for an injury year) (and discounting all those flare passes to Jim Brown that he turned into long gains). He led the league in average punt distance and was 7th in in reception yards in 1965. I always marveled that he could run an unsuccessful long route and then get off a booming punt with little time to catch his breath the next play.
Just to set the record straight…
After missing almost all of his rookie season (1979), Erxleben started the 1980 season as both kicker and punter for the Saints, but he lost the placekicking job after two games, when he was only 2 out of 5 on field goals (missing 3 field goals of under 40 yards). At that point, the Saints brought in journeyman kicker Benny Ricardo. Ricardo was the Saints’ kicker for the remainder of the '80 season, as well as '81.
The Saints didn’t draft Morten Andersen until 1982 – by then, Erxleben had had two full seasons to win back the placekicking job from Ricardo, and hadn’t been able to do so. If the Saints had had any remaining confidence in Erxleben as a placekicker by 1982, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have spent a fairly high draft choice (round four) on Andersen in the first place.