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Top kickers sign on to new contracts

Adam Vinatieri was rewarded nicely for his championship-winning season. Andy Lyons/Getty Images

By Bob Harris, Special to CNNSI.com

This is the fifth and final column in a series of position-by-position reviews of this year’s free-agent movement. The focus of this installment is on developments among the league’s unrestricted free-agent placekickers over the last month and a half:

Morten Andersen: Signed w/Chiefs on March 25; $750K/1-yr.
The Chiefs brought in Andersen to replace incumbent kicker Todd Peterson, who bolted to Pittsburgh. Andersen will be 42 in August, but the Chiefs believe he still has enough leg strength to get the job done for them.

"He had two field goals over 50 yards that were called back last year because of penalties." head coach Dick Vermeil said of Andersen, who converted 23-of-28 field goals last year in his 20th NFL season, his first with the New York Giants.

"He's a Hall of Famer over his career," Vermeil added. "Whether he can do it at 42, we're taking a chance. But there's always a chance to be taken."

The bottom line here says Andersen -- even a 42-year old Andersen -- will be an improvement over Peterson, who converted 27 of 35 field-goal attempts last season. A number of misses from inside 30 yards -- especially a 28-yard miss in a two-point loss to Oakland -- proved especially costly. Coaches also were concerned about the lack of depth on Peterson's kickoffs.

Not that they can expect much more of Andersen in that department.

Even though Vermeil would rather not have to keep an extra kicker on the active roster just to handle kickoffs, he might not have much choice in the matter. Fortunately, the Chiefs have young Lawrence Tynes, who spent most of last summer as a Chief before being released. Tynes could make the final cut this year as a kickoff specialist with a strong camp.

John Carney: Re-signed w/Saints on March 12; $775K/1-yr; $25K SB.
The leading kicker in San Diego history, the 37-year old Carney, who was released rather abruptly by the Chargers last spring, came on strong after signing with New Orleans once Saints' officials realized the three journeymen kickers were incapable of replacing Doug Brien.

Once the dust had cleared, Carney had nailed 27-of-31 field goals and all 32 of his point after attempts.

Carney still has a strong enough leg to be effective from outside 45 yards, and he's deadly from inside 40. He kicked five field goals in a game twice last season and was fourth in the NFC in points with 113. For his career, the 14-year veteran has scored 1,202 points. The former Notre Dame star has hit 290-of-356 field-goal attempts and all but three of his 335 extra-point tries.

As poorly as the Saints played over the last month of the 2001 season, I still like Carney's chances of duplicating last year's success this fall.

Steve Christie: Re-signed w/Chargers on March 29; $750K/1-yr.
Christie filled in for Wade Richey over the final five games last season, nailing his final eight field-goal attempts and going 9-of-11 overall. The former Bill was signed shortly after Richey missed field-goal attempts of 25 and 27 yards in a Nov. 25 loss to Arizona.

But the decision to re-sign Christie doesn't necessarily mean the Chargers intend to hand Richey the proverbial "apple and a roadmap" any time soon -- even though it would cost the team $1.8 million in salary to keep both on the roster.

According to those who follow the team closely, the Chargers could very well continue to use Christie on short and intermediate field-goal attempts. Richey, who had five misses from 38 yards or closer and nine misses from 46 or closer while going 21-of-32 last season, could be used on kickoffs and long field-goal attempts.

For the record, Christie’s career totals, including two seasons with Tampa Bay (1990-91) and nine with Buffalo (1992-2000), include 281-of-357 (.787) field goal attempts and 364-of-368 (.989) PATs. Christie has scored 1,207 points during his career.

Mike Hollis: Signed w/Bills on April 9; $650K/1-yr.
The Bills significantly upgraded their kicking game by inking Hollis, who scored a league-high 134 points in 1997, to a deal earlier this month.

After cutting Christie last summer, the Bills tried to get by with street free agent Jake Arians, who went 12-of-21 before he was cut and replaced by Shayne Graham, who went 6-of-8.

Hollis, who turns 30 next month, has an 80.6 accuracy rate for his career (175-of-217). He entered last season as the third-most accurate kicker in NFL history at 83.07 percent, trailing only Ryan Longwell (85.38) and Olindo Mare (83.57). Hollis went 18-of-28 in 2001. .

With Jacksonville, Hollis converted 8-of-9 field goals in three games played in Buffalo.

Although he'll be playing for a cold weather team that isn't likely to set any offensive records this year, Hollis will benefit greatly from the move to Buffalo if for no other reason than it gets him away from maniacal Jaguars head coach Tom Coughlin.

Todd Peterson: Signed w/Steelers on March 25; $3.925M/4-yrs; $600K SB. Despite his problems last season, the Steelers weren't especially eager to lose Kris Brown. But the former Cornhusker, who missed a league-high 14 field goals in 2001, signed an offer sheet with the expansion Texans that the Steelers decided not to match. Hence, the decision to sign Peterson.

The former Chief and Seahawk doesn't have the kind of leg strength that Brown does, but team officials in Pittsburgh seem to believe he'll benefit from a fresh start with a new team.

I'm not so sure. After watching the 32-year old veteran miss a couple of crucial chip-shot field goals for the Chiefs last season, I'll go way out on a limb here and say it'll take more than fresh start with a new team to jumpstart Peterson's career.

Adam Vinatieri: Re-signed w/Patriots on March 15; $5.375M/3-yrs. Vinatieri, who became the first player in Patriot history to receive the franchise player designation, heads into the 2002 season as a man on a roll. He became just the second player in NFL history -- along with Denver's Jason Elam -- to score at least 100 points in each of his first six seasons, and helped the Patriots claim their first Super Bowl title with a game-winning 48-yard field goal as time expired.

It was his fifth game-winning kick of the season and the 13th of his career. Four of those five game-winning kicks came in the Patriots final eight games of the season.

During the team's' Jan. 19 divisional playoff game against the Oakland Raiders, Vinatieri converted each of his three field goal attempts despite heavy snowfall, including a 45-yard kick to tie the game with 27 seconds remaining to force overtime. In the overtime period, he scored the game-winning points with a 23-yard field goal to give the Patriots a 16-13 victory.

The 6-foot, 200-pound place-kicker originally signed with the Patriots on June 28, 1996 as a non-drafted first-year free agent after one season with the Amsterdam Admirals of NFL Europe in 1996. The young prospect outdueled veteran Matt Bahr for the kicking duties that year and scored 120 points in the team's Super Bowl season. It was the eighth-best performance by a first-year player in NFL history.

In six seasons, Vinatieri has scored 688 career points, which is third in franchise history, just four points behind John Smith's 692. In addition, Vinatieri also owns the franchise's postseason scoring record with 54 career points. In six years, he has not missed a game (96) and has converted 160 of 199 regular season field-goal attempts (.804) and 206 of 211 PATs (.976).

That’s it for this week. Check back next week when I’ll review the top Fantasy prospects selected in this weekend’s NFL Draft.

Bob Harris is Editor and Webmaster of the TFL Report and Senior Editor for Fantasy Sports Publications.

 

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