10 classic quotes about the plight of NFL kickers

NFL kickers have but one job and about 85% of the time they do it, but when they screw up, it gets noticed. Sunday's slate of Week 11 games saw an astonishing NFL record 12 extra point misses in one day — partly the result of weather conditions and perhaps some mental jitters (Giants kicker Robbie Gould, pictured, missed a pair). 

Placekicking in the NFL has been called “football's loneliest position.” Formerly reliable Vikings kicker Blair Walsh was once a Pro Bowler but after missing four extra points this season plus four field goals (not to mention what took place in January), he's out on the street. Of course Walsh's replacement, Kai Forbath, contributed to Sunday's missed XP epidemic.

In light of these woes, here are 10 classic quotes that illustrate the plight of the lonely kicker. 

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“Football kickers are like taxi cabs” Ryan once said. “You can always go out and hire another one.”

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“Kickers are like horse manure” McKay once said. “They're all over the place.”

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“I was starting to make a lot of 50-yard field goals 50 years ago and that was a big deal,’’ said Stenerud of his earlier days with Kansas City. “Now it’s big deal, darn near, if you miss from 50.’’

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“Makes kickers more important now, which is good” Scobee said in 2015 after the league pushed back the XP to the 15-yard line. “We need all the emotional help we can get!”

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“In the old days, if you weren't hitting the ball right, you could see where the ball was going by the extra point,'' Gramatica told the Tampa Bay Times. “You still would make it, but you then could correct whatever you were doing wrong.''

“It's like missing a 33-yard field goal, But no one looks at it like that,” Gramatica said. “All they know is the kicker missed an extra point. You feel like you let the whole team down, and that can start to get into your head.''

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“Here we are,” Manning said in 2003, responding to Vanderjagt's claim that Manning ought to show more emotion. “I'm out at my third Pro Bowl, I'm about to go in and throw a touchdown to Jerry Rice, we're honoring the Hall of Fame, and we're talking about our idiot kicker who got liquored up and ran his mouth off. The sad thing is, he's a good kicker. He's a good kicker. But he's an idiot.”

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It happened in December 1996 when the Bill Parcells-led Patriots were visiting the Dallas Cowboys. Vinatieri kicked off to the Cowboys when Herschel Walker (once again a Cowboy), broke a return for 70 yards when Vinatieri ran him down and tackled him. It was pretty surreal.

After the game Parcells sought him out in the locker room with a message. “[Parcells] says to me: 'You're more than a field-goal kicker to this team now. You'll see — the way the guys will treat you will be different now.' And he was right. All of a sudden I wasn't that snot-nose kicker who no one wanted to talk to.”

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“I'd go to a restaurant in town with my wife,” Rackers said, “and hear: 'You don't deserve your job. You're overpaid. You bum.' And that was just the printable stuff.”

“Before coming to Arizona, a friend of mine said: 'You either make it, or you miss it. And every kick is a new one. The last one doesn't matter.' Simple advice, but it had an impact.”

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“Kicking is not like some perfect science,” Zauner once said. “The ball sometimes does funny things. A lot of coaches know nothing about kicking either. They don’t know. It takes time to know. It’s like I pulled this stuff out of my butt.”

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“Old place-kickers never die,” said Hall of Fame kicker Lou Groza. “They just go on missing the point.”

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