AGONY OF DE-FEET
Kickers struggle to find the mark
When he lines up to kick field goals for the Calgary Stampeders, Rene Paredes believes in taking his sweet time.
That’s sweet — as in, “swing easy, every time” — an acronym he adopted from his swing coach, the aptly named Don Sweet.
“I use that (mantra), and 100 other little things he’s taught me over the past six years,” Paredes says. “That’s why I keep working with him. Every year, he has something new to teach me or refresh my memory about the things I did right.”
Sweet, a retired teacher and former CFL kicker, is Yoda to a good percentage of the league’s punters and kickers, among them Paredes, Calgary punter Rob Maver, Ottawa
kicker Chris Milo, Saskatchewan kicker Tyler Crapigna and Richie Leone, the punter/kicker of the B.C. Lions.
With Paredes, and others among the league’s kicking fraternity, struggling to find consistency early in the 2016 season — the conversion rate for field goals was down 10 per cent going into Week 6 — former titans of the toe are worried. And they’re leaning on Sweet for advice, Leone among them.
“My punting, my kicking ... I’m not happy with either,” Leone admits. “And, I think, special teams will be vital in this game. That’s why I have to be on my game to play Calgary. Special teams are a third of the game. It’s something we take pride in and talk about.”
The surprising 3-1 Lions play the 2-1-1 Stamps Friday at McMahon Stadium in a game that will be pivotal in deciding the season series between the two West Division rivals. And much of the onus could fall squarely on the kickers, whose first meeting presaged a season in which the distance between goalposts appears to have narrowed.
Parades, who holds the league record for consecutive field goals (39), missed wide right on one attempt, another wide left on June 25 at B.C. Place Stadium. That was the difference in the contest, won by the Lions, 20-18. That same evening, Leone missed from 35 yards away, and he shanked two more field-goal attempts the following week in blustery Hamilton, although Brett Maher fared worse. The Tiger-Cats kicker scuppered all three attempts.
And that’s the way it’s gone. A poor foot plant? A pair of eyes peeking too soon? A hold tilted with the laces in? The devil is in the details. Normally reliable kickers, and the ones struggling to become reliable, have come down with a collective case of the heebie-jeebies.
In last week’s game between Toronto and Montreal, for instance, the Argos’ Lirim Hajrullahu and the Alouettes’ Boris Bede went zero-for-five. The last time two CFL kickers were skunked that many times in the same game was 1981.
Paredes has missed a convert in every one of the Stamps’ four games to date. His field-goal percentage (71.4) is substantially off his career pace of 85.7, going into the 2016 season. In his best season, 2013, his efficiency of 94.7 per cent established a league record.
“I don’t think it’s anything contagious, that’s for sure,” Paredes says with a chuckle.
“Everybody goes through a slump, whether you’re a quarterback, a receiver or a kicker. That’s when you have to show the ability to rebound. Having a guy like Don (Sweet) to talk to helps.”
Factoring into the Calgary kicking equation is the arrival of a new long-snapper, Pierre-Luc Caron, a rookie from Laval, Que. Just 22, Caron is replacing Randy Chevrier, a 39-year-old warhorse. And Caron is a lefty to boot.
“He’s (Caron) a great, great longsnapper. It’s one of the reasons we drafted him,” Paredes says. “He’s done his job perfect. There are no complaints from me and Maver. This year, I’ve started slow. It’s all on me.”
A year ago, Leone began his CFL career as a field-goal kicker by converting his first 12 attempts, which included a 56-yarder on the final play of regulation. He has tried just nine field goals this season, making six of them.
While that might signal a retrenchment, Sweet still likes the look of his swing.
“When Richie made those last year (12 in a row), some weren’t pretty kicks, and there was luck involved,” Sweet says. “I’m more worried about the process than the results. I see him kicking more consistently now, and he’s different between the ears. He’s confident. He’s more at peace. It’s what Rene has. And he’s going to be just fine..”
As to why CFL kickers generally are having issues, Sweet has a theory: the point-after-attempt. In an effort to make the convert more challenging, and certainly more interesting, distance and difficulty have been added. And negative results can impact fieldgoal kicking.
“This is a 32-yard field-goal attempt, not a PAT, ” Sweet says. “Once kickers buckle down, and realize the seriousness of it, that 10 per cent can be made up. When negative thoughts pile up, it discourages any kind of kicking.”
Sweet words of wisdom.
Everybody goes through a slump, whether you’re a quarterback, a receiver or a kicker.