Seahawks to Sign K Ryan Longwell

[kidhawk]

I liked our squib kicks with Ryan last weekend, hopefully we go with that again

You know it's kinda funny that Ryan (or any punter) wouldn't be able to boot a decent kick-off or even short field goal/xtra point. I wouldn't expect Red Bryant to go in and kick one out of the endzone but you'd think a punter would at least get something in the air down close to the endzone. Unless of course squibing it was what they asked him to do.

It's just evidence of why teams have Kickers and they have punters. Both are very different techniques. I did notice that towards the end of the game, Ryan did have a kickoff that made it about 2 yards into the endzone and got a little height on it. I think if it were only kickoffs, we could teach Ryan to be adequate, but for FG, we need an actual kicker. Luckily, none of our FG tries were very long, so Haushcka didn't need to kick too hard off his plant foot. Anything over 40 yards might have been scary.

 

[CANHawk]

I've never understood why you need a different guy to placekick and punt. Why not free up a roster spot by having one guy do both jobs. I'm sure one of those European soccer dudes could figure it out. CFL used to be full of P/K's.

 

[HansGruber]

This could actually be an improvement for us.

Hauschka has not been very clutch, he's been in the mid-80 percentile his whole career. Longwell has consistently been in the 90's. Hauschka's longest FG was 52 yards. But generally speaking, he's no good at 50 or more yards.

 

[kidhawk]

I've never understood why you need a different guy to placekick and punt. Why not free up a roster spot by having one guy do both jobs. I'm sure one of those European soccer dudes could figure it out. CFL used to be full of P/K's.

If you watch a punter try to kick or a kicker try to punt, you'll see why. There's just such a different skill set. Sure you could teach a kicker to punt the ball, but will he be able to punt the ball consistently high enough to allow coverage to get there? Will those punts be located in the right place, allowing the punt coverage to converge in the proper place on the field? Can he punt the ball and keep it just short of the endzone? The opposite is just as true with punters trying to kick. Sure you can teach them to get the distance, but can they get the proper height not to have their attempts blocked? Can they be fairly accurate without years of prior experience?

Another consideration, is what happens if you only have one guy to do both and then he gets hurt? Then you may have to sign TWO players to replace him, and for that day while he's hurt, you would likely have nobody who could punt or kick.

 

[kinesmajor]

I always thought he had the best name for a kicker

Longwell.

 

[Happypuppy]

I've never understood why you need a different guy to placekick and punt. Why not free up a roster spot by having one guy do both jobs. I'm sure one of those European soccer dudes could figure it out. CFL used to be full of P/K's.

I have seen a couple that did both at least in college. Yan Stenarude with KC and Ray Guy with the raiders. Guy never did it in a game but he did do it a lot in practice. He did some extra points in preseason as well

 

[Seahawk Sailor]

This could actually be an improvement for us.

Hauschka has not been very clutch, he's been in the mid-80 percentile his whole career. Longwell has consistently been in the 90's. Hauschka's longest FG was 52 yards. But generally speaking, he's no good at 50 or more yards.

Agreed. Longwell's old, but he's been a very good kicker. And we're not giving up a ton of accuracy or distance with the move.

 

[HawkRiderFan]

FYI, in college Jon Ryan did do placekicking and punting. Heck he played receiver too so in a pinch he could fill in there as well I have no idea how much he has practiced placements since he turned Pro though. Using Ryan last week would have meant a new holder as well. Anyone know who the backup holder is? Makes more sense to have a new kicker come in if needed vs having a new kicker and holder.

 

[kidhawk]

FYI, in college Jon Ryan did do placekicking and punting. Heck he played receiver too so in a pinch he could fill in there as well I have no idea how much he has practiced placements since he turned Pro though. Using Ryan last week would have meant a new holder as well. Anyone know who the backup holder is? Makes more sense to have a new kicker come in if needed vs having a new kicker and holder.

Flynn was a holder in GB, and I don't think the holder position is that big of a deal when you are changing kickers anyway. To me, the importance of having a holder is consistency with the kicker, so if you change the kicker, changing the holder won't really hurt that consistency.

 

[lukerguy]

I've never understood why you need a different guy to placekick and punt. Why not free up a roster spot by having one guy do both jobs. I'm sure one of those European soccer dudes could figure it out. CFL used to be full of P/K's.

I would rather take a specialized kicker and punter in each of the respective fields than someone who was simply "good" at both. It would be very rare for someone to be an expert in both fields. It's definitely worth the extra roster spot.

For example. Pete said Ryan would be good from no further than 30 yards or so.. So in order to get an adequate kicker from 50 yards, you would need to get rid of Ryan. Are you prepared to get rid of the 2nd best punter in the league as far as pinning opposing teams inside the 10? Or do you actually think it is possible to have someone as accurate as Ryan but also nail 50 yarders consistently? Sorry, not going to happen.

 

[Hawk-A-Loogie]

Haushka to me, can't kick 50 yarders when you need him to.

How is longwell in that range? I don't know, honestly.

 

[CANHawk]

I've never understood why you need a different guy to placekick and punt. Why not free up a roster spot by having one guy do both jobs. I'm sure one of those European soccer dudes could figure it out. CFL used to be full of P/K's.

If you watch a punter try to kick or a kicker try to punt, you'll see why. There's just such a different skill set. Sure you could teach a kicker to punt the ball, but will he be able to punt the ball consistently high enough to allow coverage to get there? Will those punts be located in the right place, allowing the punt coverage to converge in the proper place on the field? Can he punt the ball and keep it just short of the endzone? The opposite is just as true with punters trying to kick. Sure you can teach them to get the distance, but can they get the proper height not to have their attempts blocked? Can they be fairly accurate without years of prior experience?

Another consideration, is what happens if you only have one guy to do both and then he gets hurt? Then you may have to sign TWO players to replace him, and for that day while he's hurt, you would likely have nobody who could punt or kick.

Yeah, but it's a skill and skills can be learned. It's not like learning how to have blue eyes or be Chinese, something that is impossible to learn, you can develop more than one skillset. Baseball players learn how to switch hit, pitchers can throw more than one kind of pitch. Swimmers compete in more than one kind of stroke, why can't a professional athleate learn how to kick and punt? Guys are already kicking a football, how hard is it to then master kicking it in a slightly different way?

I dunno, just one of those random thoughts* that comes up every now and again.

*random thoughts is a registered trademark of Kip Earlywine. This post in no way represents the thoughts and opinions of Kip Earlywine or any of his associates. Used under license. All rights reserved.

 

[LawlessHawk]

You would sure think if you're keeping one place kicker on the roster and he gets blown up trying to make a tackle on a return (as they seem to do quite frequently) you'ld want the punter to be a decent backup capable of kick-offs and able to drill extra points and the occasional 30 or 35 yarder with some consistancy. You can only practice so many coffin corner punts all season...

 

[Harperville]

I liked our squib kicks with Ryan last weekend, hopefully we go with that again

You know it's kinda funny that Ryan (or any punter) wouldn't be able to boot a decent kick-off or even short field goal/xtra point. I wouldn't expect Red Bryant to go in and kick one out of the endzone but you'd think a punter would at least get something in the air down close to the endzone. Unless of course squibing it was what they asked him to do.

So I guess everyone missed the kickoff Ryan put five yards deep in the endzone?

 

[kidhawk]

I've never understood why you need a different guy to placekick and punt. Why not free up a roster spot by having one guy do both jobs. I'm sure one of those European soccer dudes could figure it out. CFL used to be full of P/K's.

If you watch a punter try to kick or a kicker try to punt, you'll see why. There's just such a different skill set. Sure you could teach a kicker to punt the ball, but will he be able to punt the ball consistently high enough to allow coverage to get there? Will those punts be located in the right place, allowing the punt coverage to converge in the proper place on the field? Can he punt the ball and keep it just short of the endzone? The opposite is just as true with punters trying to kick. Sure you can teach them to get the distance, but can they get the proper height not to have their attempts blocked? Can they be fairly accurate without years of prior experience?

Another consideration, is what happens if you only have one guy to do both and then he gets hurt? Then you may have to sign TWO players to replace him, and for that day while he's hurt, you would likely have nobody who could punt or kick.

Yeah, but it's a skill and skills can be learned. It's not like learning how to have blue eyes or be Chinese, something that is impossible to learn, you can develop more than one skillset. Baseball players learn how to switch hit, pitchers can throw more than one kind of pitch. Swimmers compete in more than one kind of stroke, why can't a professional athleate learn how to kick and punt? Guys are already kicking a football, how hard is it to then master kicking it in a slightly different way?

I dunno, just one of those random thoughts* that comes up every now and again.

*random thoughts is a registered trademark of Kip Earlywine. This post in no way represents the thoughts and opinions of Kip Earlywine or any of his associates. Used under license. All rights reserved.

Sure it's a skill, so is throwing the ball, catching the ball, tackling, but you don't really see a lot of cross training there either. It's not so much that guys can't do it, but it's going to be a rare thing to be able to do both at an NFL level.

 

[lukerguy]

His playoff long for his career is only 45, but remember he kicked in GB for most of his career where it wasn't the most friendly of kicking conditions...

He's made 18-23 career in the playoffs which is about 80% efficiency- I think I'd probably take that given the pressure of each kick.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/stats/_/id/1328/seasontype/3/ryan-longwell

 

[mikeak]

remember checking scorecenter app and suddenly there was Janikowski listed as punting

found the link - looks like they got a TO on this by surprising denver with a line drive

http://www.csnbayarea.com/raiders/janik ... ed-lechler

 

[Avisday1]

I've never understood why you need a different guy to placekick and punt. Why not free up a roster spot by having one guy do both jobs. I'm sure one of those European soccer dudes could figure it out. CFL used to be full of P/K's.

If you watch a punter try to kick or a kicker try to punt, you'll see why. There's just such a different skill set. Sure you could teach a kicker to punt the ball, but will he be able to punt the ball consistently high enough to allow coverage to get there? Will those punts be located in the right place, allowing the punt coverage to converge in the proper place on the field? Can he punt the ball and keep it just short of the endzone? The opposite is just as true with punters trying to kick. Sure you can teach them to get the distance, but can they get the proper height not to have their attempts blocked? Can they be fairly accurate without years of prior experience?

Another consideration, is what happens if you only have one guy to do both and then he gets hurt? Then you may have to sign TWO players to replace him, and for that day while he's hurt, you would likely have nobody who could punt or kick.

Yeah, but it's a skill and skills can be learned. It's not like learning how to have blue eyes or be Chinese, something that is impossible to learn, you can develop more than one skillset. Baseball players learn how to switch hit, pitchers can throw more than one kind of pitch. Swimmers compete in more than one kind of stroke, why can't a professional athleate learn how to kick and punt? Guys are already kicking a football, how hard is it to then master kicking it in a slightly different way?

I dunno, just one of those random thoughts* that comes up every now and again.

Interestingly, the Falcons tried this back in 2006 with Michael Koenen (who's from Ferndale). He went 2-for-4 in the opener and then in week 2 this happened: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200609170atl.htm Two blocks on two 30-yard attempts and misses from 36 and 40.

After that game Atlanta signed Morten Andersen and he went back to being just a punter. Last time Koenen (who is now the Bucs punter) attempted a FG was in 2007.

 

[ak3000]

Chris Gardocki

 

[mikeak]

Funny with the ATL story - so you can be cheap and try that or you can draft a kicker in the first round like Oakland.......

I kind of think 3rd-5th round pick guy that is pretty solid from 50

Of course the big thing is always with double duties it opens up roster spots