Cincinnati Bengals: Roster cut predictions, Defense
By Kenn Korb
Specialists
* = starter; + = roster spot
* Randy Bullock
Jake Elliott
* Kevin Huber
* Clark Harris
Two-thirds of the specialists jobs are locked up without any question. Harris and Huber have both been with the team since 2009, and there’s zero reason that either should be expected to not hold onto those jobs through at least the 2017 season. Neither is league-best at their respective positions, but just like so many players across the roster they are solid starters for Cincinnati.
All of the intrigue and indecision falls firmly on the kicking position. I delved deep into the details on this exact competition after Cincinnati’s final preseason contest, and to be frank, it’s an extremely difficult outcome to read.
If we go just by the time Cincinnati has had to evaluate Bullock and Elliott at the same time, judging it strictly off results, Bullock should probably have the edge. He seemed to have an advantage through training camp, and the preseason games saw him make markedly more of his opportunities than Elliott (on 40+ yard attempts: Bullock went 4-of-5; Elliott went 1-of-5).
That tiny sample size doesn’t seem to illustrate who each of these players actually are, however. In four professional seasons, Bullock has gone 34-of-50 on 40+ yard field goal attempts; in college, Elliott went 35-of-50 from that distance.
What may matter more right now though is PATs. Cincinnati lost multiple games last year directly because Mike Nugent missed six PAT kicks, and the whole reason Cincinnati drafted Elliott was to give themselves a long-term answer to prevent something like that from happening again. Elliott was seemingly a quality choice for that: he made every single one of his 202 PAT attempts in college. Meanwhile, Bullock has missed four PATs in exactly half the total tries.
College PATs no longer translate directly to professional ones anymore, however. The prior chip shots from the one yard line are now taken from 33 yards away, and that could be a problem for Elliott. In college, he went 21-of-29 on field goal attempts from 30-39 yards away. That 72.4 percent accuracy pales in comparison to that of Bullock, who has made 26-of-28 attempts in that same range during his career (92.8 percent).
The Bengals have been one of the teams who leans heaviest into keeping the players they draft around for at least a couple years; it’ll be hard to see them do so here, especially when the plan clearly was to have Elliott become their kicker for the next handful of years. Coming up short in a very small sample size — one which included a last-ditch 60-yard attempt, by the way — shouldn’t be enough to throw away a potential future stalwart at a position.
All that being said, that should not preclude them from the team going with Bullock if they in fact believe what the small sample size has shown them. The team also shouldn’t simply stick with a player because they drafted him; that sort of thinking led to the Roberto Aguayo fiasco that Tampa Bay had to deal with for two years. Also, if there were ever a year where the team should cut a pick or two the same year they drafted them, you would think it would be in a year the team drafts a baker’s dozen of individuals.
Next: NFL 2017: Predicting one disappointment from each team
Bullock outperformed Elliott in multiple games, and stayed ahead of him throughout the entire competition. There’s nothing more within Bullock’s hands that could have been done to better position himself to win. If it isn’t enough…well, he’ll immediately become the leader of the free agent kicking market, and shouldn’t be out of work for long.