Seattle Seahawks: 5 Positions to address in the 2019 offseason

Kicker

The Seahawks already made the shift from a veteran to a stud rookie at the punter position. Now it’s time for them to do the same thing at the kicking spot. The team’s current kicker, Sebastian Janikowski, is a free agent. He’s also 40 years old and will be turning 41 before the start of the 2019 regular season.

Janikowski might have played his final game in the NFL after hurting his hamstring in the Wild Card round loss to the Cowboys anyway. For someone as old and wealthy as Janikowski, he was a first-round pick back in 2000, retirement must be very enticing.

Whether Janikowski decides to retire or wants to keep playing, Seattle would be foolish to bring him back. He made 94.1 percent of his extra point attempts and just 81.5 percent of his field goal attempts. Those numbers, while not uncommon in the NFL right now when some teams seem to change kickers weekly, are not on the level of kickers on other playoff teams.

For example, Wil Lutz on the New Orleans Saints made 98.1 percent of his extra points (XP) and 93.3 percent of his field goals (FG). In 2018, Justin Tucker had a 97.3 XP and an 89.7 FG. Harrison Butker finished with a 94.2 XP and an 88.9 FG. Michael Badgley, Ka’imi Fairbairn, Greg Zuerlein, and other kickers on playoff teams all performed better than Janikowski. Among playoff kickers, only Brett Maher in Dallas and Cody Parkey in Chicago performed worse than the Seahawks kicker.

With the recent example of Parkey’s lightly tipped kick bouncing off the upright and the crossbar costing the Chicago Bears a playoff game, the Seahawks can’t be complacent at the kicker position. It’s time to find a young player to take over. Hopefully, it will go as smoothly as Michael Dickson‘s transition did.