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The pay of the player of a N.F.L. the team is about $ 175 million. But many teams pay about the league's minimum wage, which is often less than $ 1 million a year.
So what? For most fans, this seems like an easy job.
Try to tell the Minnesota Vikings or the Cleveland Browns. On Sunday, each team surely wished the purse strings were relaxed to pay a kicker set for veterans instead of the cheap young versions that they were putting in uniform.
The failures of the Minnesota and Cleveland kickers on Sunday were a breathtaking cavalcade of end-to-end balloons turning left and right of the goal posts. Minnesota rookie Daniel Carlson missed three fielding attempts, including two in overtime, and cost the Vikings a critical victory in a draw at Green Bay. Cleveland's second-year kicker, Zane Gonzalez, missed two more points and two goals, including one in the final seconds of the game, which helped the Browns to another inconceivable defeat in a match that they led most of the time. New Orleans. The Browns have not won for more than 630 days.
In the coming days, the Vikings and Browns will undoubtedly devote much more time to determining who should perform the kicker duties. They might even pay as much attention as they would to a debate about who should be the sixth linebacker in the depth chart (who often wins more money than the kicker).
In fact, expect Dan Bailey, the eight-year veteran recently cut by the Dallas Cowboys, one of FN's most accurate kickers. history, to answer calls from Vikings and Browns. Or at least he should be.
Minnesota, which six months ago offered Kirk Cousins $ 84 million to play quarterback, seemed poised to reap the benefits of the decision Sunday. Cousins, in a packed duel with the Packers Aaron Rodgers, had four touchdown passes and 425 yards and the match allowed the Vikings to position for a total of 49 yards overtime. But Carlson, whom the Vikings got for a signing bonus of $ 248,000 and a small increase over the general minimum wage of the rookies, kicked off the football right off the goal posts. He also missed a field goal in the second quarter.
This has only worsened for Minnesota. At first, the Vikings fans were undoubtedly delighted to see Cousins deftly move the Vikings on the field again in the final seconds of the overtime. Soon, the Vikings, who have a painful history of missed crucial goals that ruined the promising seasons, were in a position for a 35-yard rush that would win the game as overtime expired.
No kick of any distance is automatic, which is too often forgotten, but surely, it was not too much to ask Carlson to do any of the three attempts of the day, especially from an average distance of 35 yards. But Carlson, an All-Southeastern Conference selection as a college student in Auburn, but only playing in his second N.F.L. game, sailed another well-right attempt on his target.
"It's terrible," Carlson said later in the locker room. "Obviously, I dropped my team."
When asked if the Vikings would be in the market for a new kicker, Minnesota coach Mike Zimmer replied, "It's too early." We will evaluate everything. "
Although Cleveland, without a winner, may not have played such a crucial role, the Browns' kicking problems Sunday were almost always harder to watch.
For the second week in a row, Gonzalez, who also earns just over the league minimum, failed to help the Browns get their first win since December 24, 2016.
Last week, facing Pittsburgh, he had a last minute free kick, blocked in a match that ended in a draw. At the end of this contest, the face of Cleveland coach, Hue Jackson, was heartbreaking. One could see that an astonished Jackson was thinking: what else do we have to win?
At the end of Sunday's game in New Orleans, more sadly, Jackson no longer seemed incredulous or cracked.
The Browns took a nine-point lead in the fourth quarter, a lead they established despite a missed extra point attempt and a missed Gonzalez goal. The Saints rallied for two touchdowns and a two-point conversion to take an 18-12 lead. But with less than 90 seconds left in the fourth quarter, on a desperate fourth and fifth, quarterback Browns Tyrod Taylor crossed a majestic pass about 60 meters down the middle of the pack.
The ball remained in the air for more than three seconds, until Antonio Callaway won with the fingertips in the end zone for a superb 47-yard pass. The Browns Bench erupted in celebration.
Until Gonzalez's extra kick, which would have allowed the Browns to win a point, they were left on the goal posts.
New Orleans took a 21-18 lead on the field with 26 seconds to play. Taylor was unlikely to lead the Woebegone Browns on the pitch with flying colors and speed, leading to Gonzalez's 52-yard field goal eight seconds from time.
It was never online: wide right.
"It's about me 100%," said Gonzalez afterwards. "We were so close to this win and it was so long. I just let everyone down.
To be a kicker in the N.F.L. is hard work, especially in the final seconds of a game. This is why all N.F.L. General Managers must redouble their efforts to identify the best performing employees in such demanding and essential work and keep them paying them more than 1 / 175th of the payroll.
This could prevent more nightmarish results such as the Vikings and Browns endured on Sunday.
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