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Training Camp is in progress for the Washington Commanders and one of the most interesting camp battles is the battle for the starting Kicker position between Matt Gay and rookie Drew Stevens, but early indications are showing that it might already be over. Kevin Sheehan reacts to the stats and updates out Commanders' training camp that will decide who will win the Kicker position battle.
Transcript
00:00This from Yale, my guy Yale, writes, I know that very little in camp to the fan eye means that
00:06much.
00:07But what about the kicking battle?
00:09Looks like it's Stevens early over Moody.
00:17So, yeah, I think somebody documented the entire kicking battle.
00:25Ben did yesterday.
00:27Ben Stevens yesterday in the kickoff at camp.
00:34I'm going to give you the numbers here in a second.
00:36He was perfect.
00:38Stevens finished eight for eight and Jake Moody was five for eight.
00:43And Jake Moody's misses were from roughly 40, 48, and 53.
00:51Stevens, final total, eight for eight.
00:56Moody, five for eight yesterday.
01:00Jake Moody kicked well for us last year until the, I'm looking at it right now, the season finale against
01:07Philadelphia.
01:08Didn't he shank one from not that far out?
01:13I'm pretty sure he missed one from like 33 or something like that.
01:17It was, yeah, it was the opening drive.
01:19The, the, uh, oh, it was, it was shorter than that.
01:23He missed from 24 yards out.
01:25Ah, he missed a 24 year yard, uh, yard field goal hit the right upright.
01:30That was in the season finale at Philly.
01:34You know, neither team playing for really much of anything.
01:36Washington won the game.
01:37And that was the game Tanner McKee, I think started for Philly.
01:41Josh Johnson was starting his second straight game, uh, for us.
01:45Um, so yes, uh, he missed a 24 yarder.
01:49Let me just tell you in the NFL, you can't really miss many kicks and expect to be employed now
01:58inside of 45 yards.
02:02Inside of 45 yards, you should be near damn perfect.
02:07Unless they're major conditions, weather wise or field wise or whatever.
02:12He was 10 of 11 when he got the job here last year over the final six games, 10 of
02:1911s.
02:20Really good.
02:20By the way, he was eight of nine in two games with Chicago.
02:25Well, he, he had a lot of opportunities last year, didn't he?
02:29Um, he was so in, so he opened the season.
02:37With San Francisco went one for three.
02:41They cut him.
02:42Jake Moody.
02:43This is.
02:44So that was the team that drafted him a few years ago.
02:47He went one for three and a 17 to 13 season opening win for the 49ers over Seattle.
02:56And, uh, his misses, he missed, he missed one from between 20.
03:02Oh, let's, we got to look this up.
03:04He missed one.
03:05He missed two inside 40 yards.
03:07That's, that's crazy.
03:09Yeah.
03:09No, no kidding.
03:10He was cut.
03:11Was this when?
03:12No.
03:13Remember, it was the year before Debo went after him when Debo was in San Francisco on the sideline.
03:18Jake Moody missed.
03:20Here are the field goals he missed in the opener last year.
03:23He missed a 27 yard field goal, hit the left upright.
03:28And then he had a field goal blocked.
03:32Uh, that field goal attempt was a short one too from 35 yards out.
03:39So Jake Moody last year in the season opener, still in a 49ers uniform, missed one, missed two inside 35.
03:50One of them was a 24 yard attempt.
03:56I feel less confident about it now.
03:59I didn't realize that he had a 27 yard.
04:02So he missed a 27 yarder last year and a 24 yarder.
04:08If those kicks aren't blocked, a missed 24 yard field goal and a missed 27 yard field goal in the
04:16same system, in the same season, it almost disqualifies you to be an NFL kicker.
04:24How many kickers missed two kicks, 27 yards or closer last year?
04:30I believe the answer would be zero.
04:33And if it's not zero, that kicker is not employed by anybody right now.
04:39Then he got cut.
04:41He got picked up a month later by the bears.
04:45And in two, uh, games, he went eight for nine.
04:52Why did they end up cutting him?
04:53Why did Chicago cut him?
04:54Was it because their starting kicker was back?
04:56I'm forgetting what the answer is to that.
04:59Because Washington picked him up a month after that, but he was eight of nine in Chicago.
05:06His one miss was between 40 and 49 yards.
05:09Let me see if it was inside 45, because that was against us.
05:15Okay.
05:15He had the game winner against us on Monday night football.
05:20Um, the missed field goal that he had was blocked.
05:24We had a blocked field goal last year.
05:25Daron Payne blocked a field goal in that game.
05:31So he had two kicks blocked in his three games before he arrived in Washington.
05:36And then here in Washington, he was solid 10 out of 11.
05:42But the one miss was from 24 yards out to answer your question.
05:47Yale.
05:47Uh, I, I think that the kicking battles in camp are actually meaningful, but I think the preseason
05:58game kicking is meaningful as well, because those are plays that even if you don't have
06:06the players that you're going to have out there on special teams for a field goal in the regular
06:10season, it's still the typical lineup, snap, hold, you're probably going to have the same
06:16snapper and holder that you would have in the regular season.
06:20I'm assuming Tressway is still going to be holding if he's, you know, if he's not still
06:24on injured reserve, um, you're going to have the same long snapper and the operation is going
06:30to be identical to a regular season game without the same pressure associated with it.
06:36But when you're in a battle, you're in a kicking battle with somebody else in some ways,
06:40that is pressure.
06:43So the preseason kicks will be meaningful as well.
06:49You know, Ben said to us the other day that the ball, when it travels off of Drew Stevens's
06:54foot and goes through the goalposts, it's humming and it's higher than Jake Moody's.
07:02Okay.
07:02That's great.
07:04Here's what you got to do in the NFL right now.
07:06You basically, let me, let me, let me restate what I think now in the NFL has to be a
07:1590%
07:16plus probability.
07:17And that is any kick inside 50 yards, any kick inside 50 yards.
07:24You got to be at like 90%.
07:28If you're toiling in the mid to high eighties, you know, depending on clutch, depending on
07:34your kickoff ability, et cetera, all of that will weigh in.
07:37But, you know, yesterday's 49, today's 49 yard field goal is yesterday's 39 yard field goal.
07:45And yesterday, meaning several years ago, you couldn't miss inside 40 and be considered,
07:51you know, a reliable NFL kicker.
07:55Now you can't really miss kicks inside 50.
07:59No one, you know, has, uh, no one in the NFL has kind of barely the leg strength to get
08:06at 49 yards or 50 yards.
08:08And then from 50 and out, you got to be better than 50%.
08:13And really, I would say 50 to 54.
08:1654, you got to be very much on the high side of 50%.
08:21You got to be in the sixties and seventies.
08:24And then from 55 and out, you got to be somewhere around 50%, you know, call it 55 to 59.
08:32And then 60 plus, you want to have somebody with the ability to kick it from 60, 61, 62,
08:3963, and even a little bit further, but you're not going to hold them to, you know, high percent.
08:46Percentages inside 50, 90% plus 50 to 54.
08:53You got to be in the sixties, seventies, uh, 55 to 59.
09:01You got to be, you know, better than 50%, you know, right.
09:06Or 50% or in the fifties somewhere.
09:08And then beyond 59, 60 and out, you know, you just got to be able to get it there.
09:14Does that seem like a reasonable expectation from an NFL kicker in today's game?
09:22Did you hear my breakdown, Max?
09:25Are you paying attention?
09:26Are you writing it down?
09:27I'm not writing it even down, but I am listening.
09:29It, yes.
09:30The extended kicks for the longest time have been getting longer and longer and longer.
09:36And now we see guys like Brandon Aubrey doing it on the regular.
09:39So it's very hard to find a guy who can do it like that.
09:43And Drew Stevens, honestly, so far, this camp has been, um, he's been nailing them from 50
09:47plus.
09:47And I keep seeing every day that he is going perfect every day.
09:51So I think he's probably going to be the kicker going forward.
09:54Unless he soils himself in these preseason games, which there is something to be said about,
10:00you know, NBA players talk about it all the time.
10:01It's a different feel when you're in the game.
10:03So yeah, he was a clutch kicker at Iowa.
10:07That's the thing.
10:08He was a clutch kicker.
10:09So I'm looking at last year's kicking stats.
10:12The highest field goal percentage of the season goes to Fairbairn in Houston.
10:18He was 44 of 48, 91.7%.
10:24He did not miss a kick inside 50 yards.
10:28He was eight for eight from 20 to 29, 11 for 11 from 30 to 39, 16 of 16 from
10:3540 to 49 and
10:37nine of 13, 50 plus.
10:39I actually now think the NFL should do, um, for kicking stats.
10:43Cause it's always been done, you know, between one and 19, 20 and 29, 30 and 39, 40 and 49,
10:49and then 50 plus.
10:50What we need now is probably a 60 plus.
10:55So you can differentiate between the 50 something yarders and the 60 something yarders.
11:00Cause there's so many attempted.
11:02Um, I'm looking at the 50 plus numbers in the NFL.
11:07I mean, ridiculous, uh, McLaughlin in Tampa, 11 of 12, 50 plus, uh, in terms of the number,
11:15you know, Brandon Aubrey last year made 11 kicks from 50 plus out.
11:19He also missed six.
11:21He was 11 of 17.
11:25Um, I think the way I broke it down, I may have been not aggressive enough.
11:3290% inside 50 makes sense to me.
11:35I think you got to be that to be a good kicker in the NFL.
11:38You got to be nice.
11:40I mean, Fairbairn for the field goal percentage for the season, um, was 91.
11:47What did I say?
11:48Um, where is it?
11:5191.7% for the season.
11:54His 44 to 48 was an outstanding percentage.
11:58Oh, I see what I missed here.
12:00My fault.
12:01So he didn't have the highest percentage.
12:03He had the most field goals made 44.
12:06The highest percentage for the season was Nick Folk in New York with the Jets.
12:12My God, how many teams has Nick Folk played for?
12:15He's 41 years old.
12:17Dallas, the Jets, Tampa, New England, Tennessee, back to the Jets at 41.
12:22Um, big, still a big leg.
12:25Seven of eight from beyond 50.
12:27A 96 point, 28 of 29 on the season.
12:31Eddie Pinheiro in San Francisco, 28 of 29.
12:3469, six to seven from 50 out.
12:37My 50 out numbers are wrong.
12:40Inside 50, you got to be at 90% plus.
12:4450 to 54, you got to be at 80, in the 80s.
12:50And then we can go 55 to 59.
12:52You got to be in the 60s or 70s, probably the 70s.
12:55And then 60 plus, you got to be better than 50, 50.
12:59There's some incredible Cam Little, of course.
13:02I mean, the most ridiculous leg we've perhaps ever seen.
13:06The worst regular kicker in terms of, let's just call it, more than 20 attempts on the season.
13:16The worst percentage was Matt Gay's combined Washington and San Francisco of 17 of 23, 73.9%.
13:28Four for nine from 50.
13:31Remember, I read those tweets from last year's training camp about how Matt Gay couldn't miss from 50 and out.
13:38I mean, we got the best long-range kicker.
13:40Matt Gay's going to be great from 50 and out.
13:43And then he was one for three in that Thursday night game at Lambeau from 50 and out.
13:49And for the season, he was four for nine from 50 and out.
13:52So what does this kickoff, this competition in training camp mean?
13:57I don't know.
13:58I have no idea.
13:59It probably doesn't help Moody that he missed three kicks yesterday and one of them was from 40 yards,
14:05given that he missed a 24-yarder and a 27-yarder last year.
14:11But are they going to go with a rookie?
14:15I don't know.
14:17Moody was 10 of 11, but he shanked one in the season finale.
14:22Made one at Northwest Field on a Monday night with the rain coming down to win the game.
14:29That was a gut punch.
14:30Of course, they let, basically, Chicago run it right down their throat to get into field goal range.
14:39That was really frustrating.
14:41After the Jaden fumble, they're at their own 44.
14:46I'm just pulling it up from memory.
14:49Down 24-22.
14:51DeAndre Swift for two.
14:53DeAndre Swift for three.
14:55Caleb Williams passed to Colston Loveland for six first down.
14:58Swift for four.
15:00Swift for 10.
15:02Swift for 15.
15:04I mean, they ran it into field goal range.
15:09Down Washington's defensive throat.
15:12And that gave Jake Moody a chance on the final play of the game to kick a 38-yard field
15:16goal, which he made.
15:17Maybe if it had been 24 or 27 yards out, he would have hit the upright.
15:22Something to watch starting, really, I think, more so, more so Yale.
15:28I think the time to really start paying attention will be Friday night, August 14th, Northwest Field against the Miami
15:36Dolphins.
15:37You know, do they got, look, you got to get the opportunities.
15:41But you got to get, you got to be perfect if you're Drew Stevens in those games.
15:46And you got to show a leg strength opportunity.
15:49And, by the way, let's not forget, you got to be good at the kickoff thing now.
15:54You know, you got to be good at hitting that kickoff into the landing zone.
15:58College kickers didn't have to do that.
16:01Jake Moody's been doing that for a while.
16:04So, college kickers, there's none of that, you know, garbage on the kickoff returns.
16:11They kick it out of the end zone.
16:13They bring it out to the 25-yard line.
16:14They're not even bringing it out to the 30 in college.
16:17So, we'll see, for real, I think, starting a week from Friday night in Miami.
16:24No, at home against Miami.
16:26And they'll get a chance, by the way, to kick at Detroit indoors in week two.
16:31Big, big decision for Dan Quinn.
16:36Big decision for Larry Izzo, the special teams coach.
16:41So, yeah, they got to get that one right.
16:45I think in the NFL in today's game, you know, once you cross, legitimately cross midfield,
16:52you should be no less than six, seven yards away from an attempt at three.
16:58Ten yards away from a really high probability of three points.
17:03You reach the other team's 40-yard line, you should be walking away with three.
17:10The 55 to 59, I've got it, in the 60s to 70s, probability should be better than not that you
17:17walk away with three points minimum.
17:19I'll see you next time.
17:19them.
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