Kicking battle could go to end of camp

Phil Dawson is going to sign a one-day contract Aug. 2 so he can retire as a Brown. Anyone that has attended training camp practices this summer and noticed how erratic incumbent kicker Greg Joseph and rookie Austin Seibert have been might accurately guess the next sentence in this story:

Maybe Dawson, 44, can talk his right foot into an encore performance after 20 seasons kicking in the NFL.

“They’re both pretty mentally tough,” special teams coordinator Mike Priefer said after practice Aug. 1. “I think they’ve done a pretty good job after misses coming back and making the next one for the most part, and we’ve been trying to put them in these situations since the spring. The more pressure type situation we put them in, we have to see if they can handle them.”

Joseph and Seibert were 5-for-5 in individual drills, hitting from 33, 39, 43, 46 and 49 yards on July 31.

But in team drills, Seibert was 1-for-3. He connected from 37 yards and missed from 46 and 54 yards. Joseph missed from 41 yards. Both kickers worked separately on technique Aug. 1.

“Like I told all our guys, there are kickers and punters and linebackers and safeties on other teams in this league that are going to be available after the 53 cut, when everybody cuts down to 53,” Priefer said. “Just because they went and beat the guy out does not mean that they have the job.

“That may sound negative, but it’s not. It’s the truth. I try to tell them the

truth. I know we have the right two kickers in camp — one of them is going to win the job. I know we have the right two punters in camp, and one them is going to win the job. We are hopefully going to win a bunch of games with those guys.” An emphasis will be placed on field goal kicking in the Orange and Brown scrimmage on Aug. 3 at FirstEnergy Stadium, Priefer said.

“The only thing I know is to continue to put them in those situations, and hopefully, they get more and more comfortable doing it because the situations will not change,” head coach Freddie Kitchens said. “Every time they’re kicking, they’re going to have a situation where they have to put it through the uprights.”

Dawson kicked for the Browns from 1999-2012, amassing 1,271 points on 305 field goals, 305 extra points and one touchdown. He went on to kick four seasons with San Francisco and two with Arizona. He retires with 1,837 career points.

The Browns have been looking for a steady replacement for Dawson ever since. Billy Cundiff kicked in 2013 and 2014, Travis Coons kicked in 2015, Cody Parkey kicked in 2016 and Zane Gonzalez kicked in 2017 and two games in 2018.

Joseph replaced Gonzalez in the third game last season. He was 17 of 20 on field goals but just 25 of 29 on extra points. He was inconsistent enough for general manager John Dorsey to spend a fifth-round draft

choice on Seibert.

“(Seibert) is here to provide competition for Greg,” Priefer said. “The place I was last time (Minnesota Vikings), we would draft a kicker and then he would have the job. That’s not the case here, and we told Greg that right off the bat. I think there’s pressure that (Seibert) is going to put on himself to make the football team. Whether or not he was a draft pick, I don’t think it matters.”

Seibert made 63 of 79 field goal attempts and 87 of 88 extra point tries during four seasons at Oklahoma.

The Browns lost four games by three or fewer points last season. They tied the Steelers, 21-21, in the 2019 opener because a field goal attempt by Gonzalez was blocked.