Dolphins kickers in critical year to determine their future with Miami.
Both Dolphins Kickers must show improvement or replacements will be forthcoming.
Last year, the Miami Dolphins decided to roll the dice and release their veteran punter and kicker in favor of two undrafted rookies, Andrew Franks and Matt Darr.
2015 results were mixed for both Dolphins kickers, but that can be rationalized with the fact that both players had zero NFL experience. The encouraging thing is that both players did flash talented, big legs. So, will they be able to make the next step forward this upcoming season and add consistency?
Kicker Andrew Franks was extremely under used last year because of Miami’s anemic offense that only mustered 16 field goal opportunities. That low was tied with the Tennessee Titans for the least amount of field goals in the entire NFL. That needs to change drastically this season because Miami’s offense must crank up it’s production to put them in position for T.D.s and field goal attempts. In his limited opportunities, Franks connected on 13 of his 16 field goals with all his misses coming on attempts from 40 plus yards. It is hard to glean too much into these numbers because the fact is 16 field goal tries is not enough of a sample size to reach an accurate assessment on Franks future in the league. In addition, Franks missed 3 extra points last season and even though this has become a longer kicker now, 3 is still way too many misses on 36 extra point attempts. It doesn’t take a football gambling expert to bet that this alone could cost him his job if their isn’t drastic improvement.
Since the Dolphins were not very good at scoring, the result was that Punter Matt Darr actually got a lot of punting experience last season. He punted the ball 92 times last year, which for was tied for the second most punt attempts in the entire league. There is no mystery that if your team is low on the field goal attempt list and high on the punt attempt list, then your not doing a very good job on offense. The optimistic perspective is that Matt Darr actually played pretty well last year, especially for an undrafted rookie. He had a punting average of 47.6, which was third best in the entire league. His net average was a bit lower on the list at 10th best in the league at 41.9, which shows he can improve in doing a better job on his hang time, which would allow his special teams unit more time to get down the field to make a tackle. Lastly, he also had 10 touch backs when trying to kick the ball inside the 20, which was second most in the league, and shows he needs to improve on his placement when trying to pin the other team inside their own 20. These “pinning kicks” was something that former punter Brandon Fields was very good at and is a critical aspect of the punters job as it can dramatically change field position.
Let’s hope another year of experience and coaching goes along way in helping these two youngsters have a more productive second season. What are the rest of the Miami Dolphins news fans thoughts about how much our young kickers can improve this season?