The New York Jets believe the fourth time's a charm when it comes to finding a permanent kicker. New York had a kicker tryout Tuesday, which Sam Ficken emerged as the winner. Ficken will kick for the Jets in Monday's matchup against the Cleveland Browns, the fourth kicker for the team in a month.
Former Pro Bowl kicker Lawrence Tynes and former NFL kicker Jay Feely, who played 14 seasons and is now a CBS broadcaster, expressed their displeasure with the Jets kicking situation. The Jets had a Pro Bowl kicker in Jason Myers who converted 91.7 percent of his field goal attempts and 90.9 percent of his extra points last season. They decided to move on from Myers and let him leave in free agency, creating this kicking problem.
Blows my mind that they let Myers walk. A young Pro Bowl Kicker is worth every cent. Instead, they go cheap and this is what they get. My Dad always told me, you get what you pay for. I like Ficken, has had some good moments in the NFL hopefully he does well there. https://t.co/1ln23d99OW
— Lawrence Tynes (@lt4kicks) September 10, 2019
More games then any year ever before in NFL history were decided by 3 pts or less last year. And you have a strong legged kicker who figured out how to be accurate and you don’t value that?? Especially for a young team that will play close games 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️ https://t.co/0ttPCPvDFY
— Jay Feely (@jayfeely) September 10, 2019
The Jets have struggled to find a kicker in the post-Myers era. Chandler Catanzaro surprisingly retired from the NFL following a forgettable preseason opener in which he missed two extra points in the Jets' first preseason game. The Jets then turned to Taylor Bertolet, who finished 2-of-5 on field goal attempts with the longest kick going 39 yards. He finished the preseason 5-of-8, going 2-of-4 on extra point attempts.
That forced the Jets to move on and sign Kaare Vedvik, who struggled with the Minnesota Vikings after being acquired from the Baltimore Ravens in a trade. Vedvik made just 1-of-4 field goals, with misses from 37, 43 and 54 yards, prior to his release from Minnesota. His week with the Jets didn't go much better.
Vedvik missed a 45-yard field goal that went way right late in the second quarter in the Jets' 17-16 loss to the Buffalo Bills Sunday, one that would have extended the Jets lead to 9-0 heading into halftime. This came after he hit the left post on an extra point attempt after C.J. Mosley's interception return for a touchdown to put the Jets up 6-0 in the first quarter. Vedvik did not convert a field goal or extra point in the loss.
If the Jets, who were one of the teams with the most amount of cap space in the NFL entering the offseason, used some of that money to sign Myers ... this problem could have been avoided.
