Apparently their jobs are harder than it looks. There are only 64 total kicking jobs in the NFL and teams can't even completely fill those jobs with competent kickers.
I thought he had a pretty good year and I'm surprised we're not bringing him back. But if he's not good enough for Westhoff, then he ain't good enough for me.
That shit he pulled in the playoffs did him in. We are a playoff team and if you crumble in the playoffs, you are not a Jet very long.
Little bit of a surprise but no big deal. When he was good he was really good. When he wasn't he was fucking terrible. As long as Westy was on board with this I'm all for it.
Punter is a position the Jets are going to go as cheap as possible on. Conley has gotta be the favorite to win the job.. I really doubt they'll go out and pick up a veteran for anything other than the league minimum.
I might change this statement slightly to this: punting or place kicking more than 40 yards is at least as much luck as skill for most kickers, so there's little consistency year to year, game to game, or even kick to kick. This drives coaches crazy, so they're constantly looking to bring in the next guy who will consistently be effective on long kicks, which of course they don't find. Since every year a few kickers are lucky and therefore very effective, coaches think every kicker should be, even though often the guys who are effective one year aren't the next.
It's not luck, it's skill. You have to hit the ball the right way, you have to plant your foot in the right spot, and you have to follow with enough power. It's viewed as a pussy position because the guys that play kicker rarely get hit and they don't work as hard as "real" football players. There's definitely a lot of skill involved in kicking field goals. The best kickers in this league are consistent because of three things: physical ability, confidence, and a routine. The position is incredibly mental - these guys can kick the hell out of the ball, but if they have any doubts, they'll more than likely miss.
I don't like that @ all... Weatherford was one of the best Punters we had in a long time.... probably since, yep Craig Hentrich! lmao...I will never let that go. Anyway, I will go w/ what Westhoff does because he's Westhoff damnit but seriously Mike, Just work w/ the dude.
Weatherford was great. He missed an awesome improvised fake by 1 yard and did a crap job of hitting inside the 20s in the playoffs against the Colts. This is the price he pays, which is too bad. Hope the best for him.
These are all of the usual excuses given when differences in results from player to player are actually mostly luck - it's mental, it's momentum, people are clutch, etc. The point is that no one is capable of hitting the ball exactly the right way in exactly the right spot, with their foot in exactly the right place, with explosive power, with big people running at them, often in less-than-perfect weather conditions, kick after kick, with the very small margin of error that exists on long field goals. They do the best they can, and then whether they happened to hit it perfectly enough that their natural variation in kick direction and length doesn't make the kick unsuccessful is a matter of random chance. That doesn't mean that some kickers aren't better at it than others, but at the NFL level the differences in skill on long kicks are much smaller than the effects of randomness. It's actually very easy to tell in any sport what is luck and what is skill, as long as the result can be quantified. Broadly speaking, if professional players do it consistently (at their own level) year after year, it's skill; if it varies highly from year to year, it's luck. Kicking field goals up to 40 yards or so is definitely a skill, which is why virtually all NFL kickers do it very well year after year (and if they don't they're out of the league quickly). Kicking them from further out is much more luck, which is why virtually all kickers vary widely in their success rate from one year to the next on long kicks. It's exactly why in baseball on-base and slugging percentages measure skill, while batting average on balls in play measures luck. Smart GMs reward the former and ignore the latter.
He had his up's and downs last season, but he did lead the league in punts inside the 20 yard line. I guess it all comes down to playoff football, and it's obvious he couldn't handle the pressure. In my eyes, he's the best punter we've had since Tom Tupa, but I'm not about to get bent out of shape over a punter. Hopefully we find a diamond in the rough.
Place kicking and Punting are 2 totally different motions. I am sure there are a few kickers that could adequately do one or the other given enough time to practice but not at the same time. With all the practice required to do both their leg would be freaking dead. I don't know any real analogies in sports that would be similar, Nascar/Indy drivers comes to mind.
Tannenbaum is counting his pennies. He is not going to spend it on an extravagant Punter signing. Westhoff has seen Conley enough to know what he has. And Westhoff is the man.....
