The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter?game_id=29712&season=2008&displayPage=tab_gamecenter

Way to go!!!!  I'm glad we ditched Feely for this guy. 

Carpenter will only get better.

He's been great on Field Goals, but I'm worried about his leg.  He doesn't have great distance on kickoffs.

I tried putting a stopwatch (well, slomo replay) to his kicks and his long kicks have, on average, a slightly longer hang time than his short kicks. The point being, his short kicks aren't high boots that allow our coverage to get down field. They're just bad. (There was some speculation early in the season that he was purposely kicking them short and high).

In any event, I'm far more concerned with our coverage unit than with our kicker (or punter, for that matter). Sure, it would solve a lot of problems if Carpenter could boot it out of the end zone every time, but unless your kicker's name is Janikowski, that's unlikely.

Janikowski has touchbacks on 40% of his kickoffs this year. Carpenter? 9%

Check out the stats on nfl.com: http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?season=2008&seasonType=REG&d-447263-o=2&statisticPositionCategory=KICKOFF_KICKER&tabSeq=1&d-447263-p=1&d-447263-s=KICKOFF_TOUCHBACKS&d-447263-n=1

That's a very small group of elite "kickoff kickers". Janikowski, in a league of his own this year, was also #1 in touchback percentage last year. There's hope for Carpenter yet, though, because in the first SEVEN YEARS of Janikowski's career, he had a high of 23%, compared to 32% last year and 40% this year. You know... I'm tempted to speculate a bit on the sudden, dramatic improvement in the length of his kicks...

Whatever Janikowski is on, Carpenter needs to get some of that...

Anyone happen to notice who the #3 kicker (in terms of touchback %) on that list is?

Mare has always had a great kickoff leg.  Even when he couldn't make FGs, he still helped us greatly with field position.

  Had that guy not been 72% on field goals in 2006, he would probably still be on the team.

We should have Olindo Mare be our punter and kickoff specialist. 

It's awesome that you actually timed his kicks rather than just speculating!  Way to bring it! 

In fairness, I only did it for two games. It was unbelievably boring.

Agreed. Should we get a kickoff specialist or will Carpenter be good enough?

There is absolutely no way Parcells would ever accept spending an extra roster spot on a kickoff specialist.

^^

I think that pretty much sums it up.  Roster spots are too valuable to spend another roster spot on a guy who will only play about 5 plays in a game.

Fair enough.  Is there anything a kicker can do to increase kickoff distance?  What was with the jacked squib against the Bills?  Looked like an onside kick but the jackass announcers (who called Ricky Brown at least two separate times) said he just missed it. 

Sure. Do whatever Janikowski did. After 7 years of averaging no more than 23% touchbacks a season, he has experienced a MASSIVE increase of over 50% these past two years reaching 33% last year and 38% so far this year.

To illustrate just how absurd this increase is, his second best season in the 7 years prior (where his best was 23%) was 17%. That is, he has DOUBLED his touchback percentage from his second-best year prior to last year. That's insane.

I still don't think leg is as big a problem as strategy is. Even with the short kicks we have complained about, Carpenter is still averaging only about four yards a shorter kickoff than Janikowski who is booming them through the end zone. The Dolphins even tried a squib kick last week.

A stronger leg allows a kicker to get more hang time with the same distance. ANY kicker on an NFL roster kan kick the ball 65 yards if trajectory were not an issue. But hang time is extremely important. If a kicker could get the ball to the 20 each time with an insanely long hang time, that would be just as valuable as kicking the ball through the endzone: Neither would allow any return and the return team would get the ball on the 20.

Carpenter's kicks don't have enough hang time. The result is that our coverage units don't get far enough down field (and they suck). Some kickers prefer to go for height over distance to allow the coverage unit time to get in position, but Carpenter's kicks have about the same hang time regardless of length (not counting squib kicks), so that's not what he's doing.

A stronger leg would also allow him to kick more towards the sideline, while maintaining depth and hang time. That kicking "strategy" is much more valuable if you actually have the leg to do it (without sacrificing depth or hang time).