Tampa Bay Buccaneers look to Ryan Succop for answers at kicker
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers added Ryan Succop to the kicking competition.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a team looking to compete at a championship level in 2020. They have found their answer at quarterback with Tom Brady and the team has a very solid roster from top to bottom. One of the areas of deep uncertainty is the kicker position.
Incumbent kicker Matt Gay doesn’t seem to have complete confidence of head coach Bruce Arians and he has been in a kicking competition throughout training camp. Now the team has ramped up the competition with the signing of a potential successor to Gay with the signing of veteran kicker Ryan Succop.
Originally, the Buccaneers were hoping Elliott Fry would be enough to either challenge or at least coax a better performance out of Gay during the team’s training camp. Unfortunately, although Fry had been pushing Gay in practices, Fry missed a field goal and an extra point during the team’s scrimmage at Raymond James Stadium on Friday.
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By Sunday, the team had brought in Succop and Cody Parkey to potentially join the competition. On Monday, the team officially signed Succop and released Fry.
Is Ryan Succop the better option than Matt Gay for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?
In Succop, the Buccaneers add an 11-year veteran who has various levels of success in the NFL. For his career, Succop has made 82 percent of his field goal attempts and 97 percent of his extra points. Those are both better in the small sample size Gay was able to give in 2019.
Succop only appeared in six games last season due to an offseason knee procedure but the Buccaneers are betting on him being healthier this season and producing the way he has throughout his steady career which includes two top-ten finishes for field goal percentage.
Although Gay was an above-average at field goals over 50 yards at 62.5 percent last season, he really struggled in attempts from 40-49 yards at just 35.7 percent. These are the more common field goal attempts and these are the attempts championship teams need their kicker to be nearly automatic.
Add in his 77.1 percent on extra point attempts and it makes complete sense for the head coach to continue to bring in kickers to challenge Gay. If he can stand up to the challenge, maybe it will bring the best out of him and bring some consistency out of him. If it does not, the team could move on to the person who beats him out.
As Arians said when addressing the kicking competition on Sunday, per ESPN:
"“We can’t miss extra points. We can’t give away the easy points. Kicks inside the 30-yard line should be automatic. If you can hit a 56-yarder, that’s great. But when we drive the ball down to the 10 and miss a field goal, there’s nothing that tears a team more apart on offense than just, ‘Hey, we just took the ball down the field. We didn’t get any points.’ So the gimmes — who’s the most consistent? If you can do that and still kick 56, 57, now you’re All-Pro.”"
Unlike when the team added Fry to compete with Gay, Succop gives the Buccaneers an added kicker who has already kicked in regular season games. Fry had no experience in the NFL regular season while Succop has made pressure kicks in the past.
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If the team finds he is back to his 2018 form, coach Bruce Arians may bet on his experience and career consistency rather than just look at the big leg potential of Gay. Succop was successful on 90.3 percent of his extra point attempts in 2018 and also 86.7 percent of his field goal attempts. Chances are, he will be the Buccaneers place kicker for the regular-season opener.