Giving NFL Kickers the Boot

The NFL playoffs pit the biggest, baddest, most athletic men in the league against each other. Emotion runs high with yelling, screaming, celebrating and crying pasted on the television screen for the nation to see. These men are the modern-day gladiators, the cream of the crop, the ultimate physical specimens on earth. But the funny thing is, they rarely determine the outcome of the most important football games. That distinction falls on the scrawny, 170-pound, balding, middle-aged man who sits away from the rest of the team during the entire game. He is, of course, the team’s place-kicker.

Take a look at this post-season so far. Nick Keating misses a field goal, giving the Jets a chance to win in overtime. They do so with a Doug Brien field goal. In the next round, it’s Brien missing the field goal (two of them actually, both from more than 40-yards away) and the Steelers end up winning in overtime…on a field goal. During the regular season, the Vikings lost three games because of a field goal as time ran out. It kind of makes me wonder, is the place-kicker the most important position on a football team?

That question will seem utterly ridiculous to anyone who has ever been on a football team. Across the board, teams mock and ridicule their kickers. Even if the kicker gets along with the rest of the team, he’s still not considered a part of the team in the truest sense. He often times doesn’t hang out with the rest of the team, doesn’t work out with the rest of the team and doesn’t get respect from the rest of the team. But when the game is on the line, you better believe they notice him then.

It’s time for a change in football. Maybe the NFL needs a change in the rules clarifying the fact that kickers aren’t truly football players. They need to make a field goal less important in the game. Maybe it should only be worth two points. Maybe you can’t win a game with a field goal, it has to be a touchdown. Then the tough guys who want to be known as tough guys can have their game and they don’t have to worry about inviting the little kicker along. The ESPN commercial where Daunte Culpepper chooses the meter man instead of the kicker tells it all…the kicking position has to go. Or at least it has to be toned down a bit.

The other option is to begin a shift in the way football players view kickers. They are just a player of a different build. After all, quarterbacks aren’t built like linebackers but they don’t seem to have any trouble getting respect. Defensive backs and wide receivers are slender, sometimes downright tall and skinny guys but they don’t have trouble earning respect. Football players just need to respect kickers more.

Then again, maybe the rule change is the only real option