By Greg Garber | ESPN.com | November 15, 2006
Place-kickers, for approximately six days, 23 hours and 59 minutes each week, are an underappreciated group.
They wander the practice field, unconsciously turning over a ball in their hands, while the realwork is getting done in crunching seven-on-seven drills. When the game finally arrives, kickers are on the sideline for the vast majority of the typical game’s 125 plays, in which 22 mostly physically superior players are engaged in the bruising business of football.
Then, with a few seconds left on the clock, the little kicker saunters onto the field and wins the game — or loses it.
Non-kickers, generally speaking, have little regard for kickers. The Baltimore Ravens are an exception. At the end of every Friday’s practice, they invite a guest kicker to stand in for place-kicker Matt Stover. Coach Brian Billick brought the tradition to Baltimore in 1999.
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“I love it,” Stover said. “You line up for a 20-yard field goal and say, ‘Aw, this is a chip shot.’ But when you have to go out there and there is maybe 100 bucks on the line — I hope that’s not a salary-cap issue — they have to try to perform that kick.
“There is no snap. There is no rush. There is nothing. They have got all the time in the world to line up and try to kick it through — and more times than not, they miss it.
“If you’re lining up a 52-yard, game-winning kick, they look at you and go, ‘Man, I am glad I’m not Matt Stover today.’ That is when you gain the respect from your fellow teammates.”
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