 |
| |
|
 |
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
The last kick The Super Bowl doesn't often come down to it, but ...Posted: Saturday January 25, 2003 12:08 PMBy John Donovan, CNNSI.com SAN DIEGO -- You don't have to hit the Super Bowl history books very hard to see the importance of a field goal kicker in this game. Last year. Adam Vinatieri. The New England Patriots. Remember? This year's Super Bowl has been full of talk about the importance of one offense vs. the other's defense. The Oakland Raiders have the NFL's top-ranked offense. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have the best defense. If the experts are right about this one, Super Bowl XXXVII could be close. Which means it could end on the toe of Martin Gramatica or Sebastian Janikowski. "Hopefully," says Gramatica, Tampa Bay's kicker, "it doesn’t come down to that. I want to win by a lot."
The fact is, Super Bowl corkers like last year's are few and way far between. Only three of the previous 36 Super Bowls have been decided by three points or less. Jim O'Brien's 32-yard field goal in Super Bowl V in 1971 won it for the Baltimore Colts. Buffalo's Scott Norwood was wide right with a 47-yard field goal with four seconds left, giving Super Bowl XXV to the New York Giants in '91, 20-19. Last year, 11 years after Norwood's miss, Vinatieri's 48-yard field goal as time expired beat the favored St. Louis Rams 20-17. That's it. Not a lot of history. But no one knows when the next opportunity may come. "I don’t want to think about it," Gramatica said. "I’m trying to take this week as normal and relaxed as I can." The two kickers in this game are both non-American, soccer-style kickers, though the physical similarities end about there. Gramatica, an Argentinian, is just 5-foot-8 and 170 pounds. Janikowski, born in Poland, is listed at 6-foot-2, 255 pounds. They are considered two of the better kickers in the NFL. They each scored 128 points this year. Gramatica had more field goals than anyone in the NFL (32) and was money inside of 40 yards, hitting 21 of 23 attempts. He also was 5-for-6 from 50 yards out. Overall, he nailed 32 of his 39 attempts. Janikowski hit 26 of his 33 tries, going 17-of-20 inside of 40 and 2-for-2 outside of 50. Earlier this season, he changed his style and went from a three-step approach to a one-step approach. "He’s a great, very strong kicker. He can use his leg and get the ball there," Gramatica said of Janikowski. "I have to use my whole body. I don’t have a choice." Janikowski is not only big, he's been a big personality since his college days at Florida State. He was a first-round pick in 2000 and has been in legal trouble that, at times, has strained his relationship with his teammates and coaches. He pleaded no contest to a drunken driving charge in December and was placed on three years of probation. Still, those who know him insist he's not a bad guy. "It’s not that he was not a good person, but he has become a better person," special teams coach Bob Casullo said. "I think he has realized that a lot of times the things he did were not accepted by his teammates and he has now worked very, very hard to overcome that and get his teammates' faith back." Janikowski said he would welcome a chance to kick the winning field goal in the Super Bowl. But, like every kicker, both Janikowski and Gramatica know what it would mean to miss a big one in the big game, too. “I want to win by a lot so I can enjoy the fourth quarter," Gramatica said. "It's terrible what happened to Norwood because that’s what people talk about." If Sunday's game indeed comes down to a final kick, it would be something unusual for these guys, at least this year. Neither of the kickers has had to deal with too many close games. Janikowski missed both his tries in an overtime loss to San Diego early in the year. Gramatica missed a 42-yarder late in the season in a 3-point loss at New Orleans. Other than that, the Bucs and Raiders have not had to lean on their kickers in late-game situations. Still, no one knows better than these two guys that the call to line up for a big-game kick is a real possibility. And what they do with that kick could make them the latest Norwood.
Or the latest Vinatieri.
|
|
||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
"You have to go to the game like it is the Winter Olympics and it becomes a modern-day version of the Ice Bowl. That's the mindset you need."
>>> Tim Brown
