There is nothing worse than the yips. In golf it involves swinging and watching everything fly 90 degrees right off your club face. You can't control anything and it's 100 percent mental. It's horribly embarrassing and it's probably a million times worse to have the yips if you're a kicker in football.
Especially if you were taken in the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft, like Buccaneers kicker Roberto Aguayo.
The Bucs actually traded up for Aguayo, the most accurate kicker in college football history, believing he could make a difference for the team immediately. He's made a difference, except the difference is everyone's talking about him for all the wrong reasons.
Aguayo missed an extra point in his first preseason NFL game. Then he promptly missed a 32-yard field goal in his second preseason NFL game. He would later miss a 49-yard kick as well.
Things got so bad he decided to talk with a "mental coach."
That's about as big a red flag as you can have, but fortunately it probably helped and -- oh, wait, what's that? Things are getting worse? Oh no.
If you're interested, here's the miss after the shank. Thank @JennaLaineESPN for showing me how to download a snap! pic.twitter.com/CY0tijO387
— Pat Donovan (@PatDonovanNFL) August 23, 2016
Roberto Aguayo just had one of the worst practice shanks I've ever seen followed by another miss. It's officially a thing. #Bucs#Browns
— Pat Donovan (@PatDonovanNFL) August 23, 2016
Another miss for Aguayo. This one he kicked into the line. Overall, Aguayo was 3-for-6 on kicks in 11-on-11 work today. #Bucs
— Roy Cummings (@RCummingsNFL) August 23, 2016
It's the preseason and it's just practice but this is a MAJOR PROBLEM. When someone is a top-60 pick, like Aguayo was, the expectation is early production.
When someone is a kicker taken has never missed a field goal inside of 40 yards, the expectation is deadly accuracy out of the gate.
Instead Aguayo is missing everything in sight and clearly has demons dancing in his head. Week 3 of the preseason looms quite large for him.
