New York Jets: Can Chandler Catanzaro bounce back in 2017?
The New York Jets have a new placekicker in Chandler Catanzaro, but can he bounce back from a disappointing 2016 NFL season?
Let’s face it — discussing the kicker position for an NFL team is not very exciting. It can be downright boring sometimes. With that being said, it’s also crucially important at the same time. Having a reliable kicker that can drill a game-winning field goal in a pressure spot is worth its weight in gold.
The New York Jets will have a new placekicker for the first time since 2009. Nick Folk has departed for Tampa Bay and Gang Green has welcomed former Arizona Cardinal Chandler Catanzaro as their placekicker for 2017. The Clemson product has a lot to prove this coming season.
The Red Birds signed Catanzaro as a free agent in 2014 and their gamble really paid off well initially. The Greenville, SC native connected on 88 percent of his field goal attempts in 2014 and tallied 114 points, the second-highest total among NFL rookies. Only Philadelphia’s Cody Parkey (150) scored more.
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Catanzaro followed up that stellar rookie campaign by drilling 90 percent of his field goal attempts in 2015, including five against the Rams on Oct. 4. His future looked bright in Glendale as he was considered one of the finest kickers in the entire league.
The 2016 NFL season was an entirely different story, though. Despite booting a career-long 60-yard field against Buffalo on Sept. 25, Catanzaro really struggled with his accuracy. He connected on just 75 percent of his field goal tries, which is a very poor percentage by league standards.
A microcosm of his lackluster campaign came on Oct. 23 when he missed a game-winning field goal from only 24 yards out late in overtime against the Seattle Seahawks in a nationally televised contest. That game ended in a 6-6 tie and the Cardinals never fully recovered from their missed opportunity to defeat a bitter divisional rival and remain a factor in the NFC West race.
Here is a video clip of that botched attempt:
Converting PATs has also been a problem for the 26-year old kicker as well. Before the beginning of the 2015 NFL season, owners agreed to move the extra-point attempt back to the 15-yard line, which meant that a kicker would need to boot the football 33 yards for a successful PAT.
Over his last two seasons, Catanzaro has missed nine of those attempts, one of the highest figures in the league. Whether that flaw is mechanical, a mental block or both, it needs to be corrected immediately moving forward.
Everything is not all gloom and doom with Gang Green’s new kicker, though. As evidenced by his career-best 60-yard field goal, Catanzaro still has some of the longest range in the entire league. He just needs to be more consistent and reliable. Catanzaro also ranked first in the NFL in touchbacks in 2015 and was 10th last year. Leg strength has never been the issue.
Due to the intense heat in Arizona, Catanzaro kicked in prime conditions with the roof closed at University of Phoenix Stadium. It will be interesting to see how he adapts to kicking outdoors in the northeast with the swirling winds of MetLife Stadium that all Jet fans know so well.
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Ross Martin will share kicking duties in training camp with Catanzaro, but it would be a surprise if the former won the starting gig. The bottom line is that Catanzaro has huge upside, but he must fix his accuracy issues, or he could be kicking in the Canadian Football League sooner rather than later.