A long journey on a strong leg
Kicker Janikowski, good as ever, wants title for Raiders
TAMPA, Fla. — He remembers the sound as if it were yesterday.
Yesterday was 20 years ago, just up the road here in Florida.
There was a loud thud, then silence. The other players at Seabreeze High in Daytona Beach stopped what they were doing at football practice to see what had just happened. Some soccer player named Sebastian Janikowski was trying out at kicker.
Now the “booms” and 60-yard field goals happen at Raiders practices. Janikowski is 38 years old, in his 17th NFL season, and this year set the league record for most field goals from 50 yards or more (he has 55).
Janikowski, who usually treats media requests like footballs, took some time out last week to reflect on his journey and his future as the Raiders (5-2) prepared to play the Bucs (3-3) on Sunday.
“I don’t feel any difference now when I kick,” he said. “The leg strength … I am still the same.”
The 6-foot-1, 265-pound Janikowski was 50 pounds lighter back in Daytona Beach but still an imposing and fascinating character.
He had moved from Poland to Florida to be with his dad, who had come to this country to pump new
Sebastian Janikowski looks from the bench in the final minutes of a loss last October against Denver. Janikowski has played more games for the Raiders and scored more points for them than anyone else in franchise history.
life into his professional soccer career. Sebastian had played for Poland’s Under-17 national team and was offered a million-dollar deal to turn pro with San Lorenzo of Argentina’s First Division.
“I was 16 years old coming to a new country, and all I knew was playing soccer,” Janikowski said. “Didn’t know the language, didn’t know any of the kids, it was pretty tough.”
Soccer made the transition easier, as Janikowski starred for the Orlando Lions club team before moving to Daytona Beach to play for Lions coach Angelo Rossi’s Seabreeze High soccer team. Before trying his foot at football, he set the school record for goals and became one of the cool kids at school.
Come on, how many kids win games with bicycle kicks and 40-yard shots, or have an opposing player leave the game after blocking one of their kicks?
The football team came calling, and Janikowski was a natural.
“Kicking a soccer ball hard always felt simple to me, and I liked football right away. And kicking comes from soccer, so I enjoyed that and the reaction when football people saw me kick.”
He would practice his accuracy kicking footballs at light posts.
“I would kick first for football,” Janikowski said, “and then go run around for three hours at soccer practice. It was a lot of fun, playing, hanging out with my friends and being a kid.”
Janikowski would become quite the fun-seeker and partier at Seabreeze, Florida State and then with the Raiders. But his foot got him out of problems at Florida State (bar fights and a missed curfew before a bowl game) as it helped get coach Bobby Bowden wins. Janikowski became the first player to win the Lou Groza Award, given to the best kicker in college football, twice.
“Janikowski would be an excellent linebacker or tight end,” Bowden once said, “if I thought he wouldn’t hurt his foot.”
Janikowski never looked back on the sport he left behind.
“I made the right decision,” he said. “Love what I am doing. Have always loved what I am doing.”
He opted out of his senior year for the 2000 NFL draft and nearly fainted, like everyone else, when Raiders owner Al Davis took him in the first round.
“Was definitely surprised,” Janikowski said. “Being picked 17th. You just don’t see that. But when you look back, I think you can say it paid off. I am in my 17th year. Who would have thought it would go that long?
“I appreciate Al Davis and the Davis family a lot. They made the right choice, and hopefully I can keep going a while longer.”
The Bucs drafted Florida State’s Roberto Aguayo in the second round this year, the highest a kicker has gone since Janikowski. What advice would Janikowski give him?
“Just calm down and enjoy the game,” he said. “Because when you get drafted that high, there is a lot of pressure on you. Just take it one day at a time.”
Did Janikowski feel pressure?
“Definitely,” he said. “A lot of people were saying, ‘Why did you pick a kicker?’ It wasn’t an easy ride.”
Those questions grew louder when Janikowski was arrested twice in 2000 — he was acquitted of bribing a police officer and later of drug possession — and again for drunken driving in 2002 (he pleaded no contest).
Janikowski and former punter Shane Lechler had some legendary benders — before the days of social media, thankfully. Finally, the drunkdriving arrest and three years of probation slowed him down.
“You learn to be a professional,” Janikowski said. “And then you have kids.” (His twin girls turned 4 in September.)
And then you focus on getting in better shape, as he has the past few years.
“You work out more,” Janikowski said. “When you’re younger, you ride on talent. But in this league, everybody has talent. It’s not going to get you far. So, you work extra.”
For how long will he push himself ? Janikowski has played 259 games, the most by a Raider, and he could make a serious run at 300. He is the franchise’s all-time leading scorer with 1,728 points, 12th on the NFL scoring list.
“I just take it year by year,” he said. “See what happens. First you go five years and then you want to hit double digits. Now it’s all about winning the Super Bowl here. I want my ring.”
Lechler is gone, and the transition to new punter and holder Marquette King was not a smooth one. In 2013, Janikowski hit only 21 of 30 fieldgoal attempts, his lowest success rate since 2005.
“It takes time to get used to it,” Janikowski said. “I had the same holder for 13 years, so I didn’t have to tell him how to put the ball down, where, nothing. If it was windy, Shane knew what to do, knew all the different adjustments. Marquette has been working on that and has done a really good job.”
The past three years, Janikowski is back over 80 percent.
“He finally trusts me,” King said. “Seabass is one of the best to ever do it, and he is still doing it.”
General manager Reggie McKenzie not only kept Janikowski when he came on board in 2012, but also gave the kicker a four-year, $15.1 million extension in 2013.
“He still had that pop in his leg,” McKenzie said. “He had a couple spells where he was inconsistent, but he worked through those. He’s kept his weight down and become more coachable . ...
“He and Marquette, they had to make that work, and they learned how to communicate better.”
And as with Lechler, the Raiders again have one of the best kicking combinations in the league.
“Marquette can boom the ball,” Janikowski said. “He and Shane are two of the best legs I have ever seen in the game in my life.”
A former Raiders punter, Ray Guy, made the Hall of Fame last year. Did that get Janikowski thinking?
“It would be a spectacular honor,” he said. “But people mention it and I put up my hand. It matters … but I don’t think about it or talk about it. It’s not my choice, right?”
It is the choice of Clark Judge and the rest of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee, and Judge, a former sportswriter who now works for the Talk of Fame Network on radio, thinks Janikowski doesn’t have much of a shot. Even if he plays for a while longer.
“Jan Stenerud and Ray Guy are the only kickers in, and it took Guy 25 years,” Judge said. “I mean, Morten Andersen is the all-time leading scorer in the league, and he’s not in. What other sport does that?
“Plus, Seabass didn’t play for any championship teams or have any signature kicks. Which is why Adam Vinatieri will have a better shot than him. But you never know. … Maybe longevity will make a difference.”
The reason Janikowski is sticking around, as he said, is simple. He wants a Super Bowl ring, and with the Raiders’ 5-2 record this season (and 4-0 on the road), that’s not ridiculous banter anymore.
Why is this year’s team better?
“Determination,” Janikowski said. “Guys want to win. It’s been so long since we’ve been able to do this, go into other teams’ stadiums and keep winning games. The coaches are doing a great job. They put us in great position to win games. And when you win, players watch extra film to get that feeling again next week.”
Janikowski has been coming back for that feeling for 20 years, since that day up the road in Daytona Beach.