What the status with Ghost?

[BradyFTW!]

I'm not arguing that he's a good kicker. I'm just saying that he's not head and shoulders above what his replacement might be.

Yes, he's been to a Pro Bowl. So has Shayne Graham, who's a FA. So has Rackers, who's also available. So has Nick Folk, who's out of the league. So that alone is not an indicator of him being "elite".

Gost has pretty good stats and pretty good Kickoff numbers, but look at his numbers - he was not a top 5 kicker this year in any of those categories.

Lastly, with regard to some "smart team drafting at the end of the second round", we could certainly take the Colts as an example. They could give up 63 for Ghost and give him a Vinatieri-type contract. Since I've already done this in another thread, I'll repost is here - what the Colts have done over the past several years with picks in the 55-70 range. A truly "smart" team, would not give up top $ AND a pick that typically results in a multi-year starter, for a kicker.


Not exactly an all-star cast, but a lot of these guys were multi-year starters:

Fili Moala - 56, Mike Pollack - 59, Tim Jennings - 62, Kelvin Hayden - 60, Ben Hartsock - 68, Gilbert Gardner - 69, Mike Doss - 58, Marcus Washington - 59.

Jennings is terrible, and might have cost them the SB. Probably don't want to use him as an example.

Gostkowski's overall value to our ST is tremendous. He's great on kickoffs, and he kicks for a high percentage with good range. He hasn't proven himself to be clutch or unclutch yet, since, to date, we really haven't relied on him to win playoff games for us yet. He's missed kicks, yes, but he's also made a bunch. Not sure where the line of thinking comes from that, because he hasn't won a SB for us yet, he must be crap.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

It's virtually impossible to evaluate a player's "clutch" ability. If one is going to tout Vinatieri for all his "clutch" kicks, they need to keep in mind his "unclutch" misses. Because Gostkowski has never been in that situation (kicking a game winning playoff field goal), it's useless to bring "clutch" into the equation. When evaluating your kicker, you want the guy who is most likely to hit an important field goal for your team. To that extent, Gostkowski is one of the most accurate and reliable kickers in the game. For anyone to imply that he can't get the job done in the playoffs is absurd. Over the course of history, I'm sure you would find that the vast majority of accurate regular season kickers are accurate in the playoffs as well. There are always a few exceptions (Kaeding being the obvious one), but in general it holds true.

Garret Hartley made a bunch of "clutch" kicks for New Orleans in the playoffs and Super Bowl, but he also blew a number of regular season kicks which cost the Saints at least one game (Tampa Bay) and nearly another (Washington). Judging by the reactions of some in this thread, he would be an upgrade over the "unclutch" Gostkowski. For my money, I would much, much rather have Gostkowski than Hartley and I'm not sure of any sane argument to the contrary.

Gost is one of the game's best, and there are very very few upgrades out there (I'm not sure any of them are even available).

What's your point? I said I hope the Pats do everything reasonable to keep Gostkowski and pay him up to 3.5 a year for five years plus incentives. How much clearer can I be that I want him to be the Patriots K for the forseeable future?

I was just making the point that we shouldn't kid ourselves that he's the same kicker as Vinatieri, unless and until he proves that he is. Adam Vinatieri is the greatest clutch Place Kicker in the history of the NFL and I think he will one day be in Canton, wearing his Patriots uniform.

I picked that one kick from this season because the image of #4 planting, kicking and making the SB XXXVI kick from a couple yards away on the same field is indelibly imprinted in my mind, as I think it is in the mind of every Pats fan. Does it mean that Gostkowski wouldn't have made that kick if he had been in Adam's shoes? Nope. Does it mean that Gostkowski missed an almost identical kick on the same field with nowhere near the pressure on him? Yep. Nothing more. Nothing less.