Analyzing the Kicker, Punter, and Long Snapper
Most often times Punters, Kickers and Long Snappers are quiet unsung heroes. Like Chewbacca of Star Wars, “Sam” Gamgee of Lord of the Rings, or Wilson of Castaway. You don’t always hear about them but they always seem to come through in the clutch. When they do make the rare mistake it’s usually well documented and tragic. Redskins Capital Connection takes a look at these unsung heroes and analyzes their skill set and potential. RCC suggests you listen to Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out for a Hero while reading this analysis to really capture the dramatic effect of how important these players are to the team.
Washington Redskins Long Snapper Nick Sundberg has been with the team since 2010, with only two seasons where he was hurt and didn’t play the full 16 game schedule. He is, in a word, reliable. The research on Sundberg seems to be that he is a consummate professional and engages with the community on a regular basis.
The average fan doesn’t hear much about Sundberg and that is a good thing. It means he is doing his job to perfection. He does the same thing over and over again and he can’t mess up. That takes confidence, focus and believe it or not, athleticism. There aren’t even any statistics we can look at to gauge his success except for the fact that he hasn’t made a giant glaring error. Maybe, the Elias Sport Bureau should start tracking botched snaps. Let’s send them an email. If we never hear his name again we’ll know he’s had a great career. He’s the Clark Kent to someone else’s Superman, it doesn’t mean he is devoid of powers, it’s just that he does it incognito.
A common joke heard often around bad teams is when they see the Punter come trotting out after a failed 3rd down conversion by the offense, someone will exclaim, “Here comes our MVP!” Punters rarely get any love or respect.
Tress Way, deserves some of our respect as he was a top Punter in 2014 and an above average Punter in 2015. He occasionally out kicked his coverage which lead to a returned touchdown, and he had a punt blocked last year, but overall did great with some booming kicks and gave the team great field position throughout the season.
Way should continue to grow and get better if he focuses on his accuracy downing punts inside the 10 yard line and tilt the battle for field position in the Redskins favor. Punters tend to get better with some years of experience under their belt, where they have learned the nuances and still have the youth of their leg in front of them. Entering his fourth season, the team has not brought in any competition for training camp and he seems like a solid option. This could be the year the team doesn’t allow a special teams touchdown by the opponent and could signal a resurgence for a unit that has been plagued the last couple of years.
The other specialist on our list, Dustin Hopkins, was handed his first almost full year as a professional kicker last year after Kai Forbath was released after missing a field goal and delivering short kickoffs in the first game of the 2015 season. Hopkins would go on to complete 89.3 percent of his field goals, going 25 for 28 on the season with his longest kick coming from 54 yards out. He had a couple of blemishes that included missed extra points attempts against Philadelphia in Week 16 and Green Bay in the playoffs.
Nonetheless, he is a top 10 kicker and the Redskins have decided not to bring anyone in to compete with him this training camp. Having gone through almost a full season for the first time, Hopkins should be ready to deliver and could improve kicking from long distances as he found his 3 misses in the 40+ yard range. Field position was improved due to his efforts, as he was kicking it into and past the endzone for touchbacks.
Although, with new league rules in place, where the touchback is being moved from the 20 yard line to the 25 yard line, it could be argued that he might not want to play for a touchback. It might be one of the more interestingly boring subplots of the season.
What won’t be boring and interesting to see, is if he can continue to improve and provide the sort of stability the Redskins haven’t seen from that position in a long time. If the Redskins hope to grow from last season they’ll have to win tight games and have a clutch kicker who can make the kicks in all kinds weather, circumstances and pressure.
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If you look back in NFL history the only kicker in the modern era of the game to ever win the league MVP was Redskins kicker, Mark Mosley, in 1982. That’s like a Jeopardy answer. He beat out greats like Dan Fouts, Marcus Allen, Lawrence Taylor, and Joe Montana. The list goes on and on. All the Redskins super teams had a decent kicker to bail them out of tight jams, here’s hoping they found one in Hopkins.
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