The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

What do you think of the Kicking?

Sturgis has missed a field goal each of the last three weeks and they have been pivotal.

The Patriots throughout the course of their dynasty had Adam V and now they have the Ghost, who was been money this year.  Big reason they are 6-2 (plus the refs) despite not playing that well

least of Miami's issues right now

He should've made his kick this week, though the conditions were pretty tough.  But other than that, I don't really fault him.

Whose fault was the  block?  I missed the replay.  Was it the line or did Sturgis kick it poorly?

Line, completely.  Sturgis had no chance.  The line completely fell back and players were all over it...not even close.

He said everything in warm-ups hooked left. He kicked it at the right post and it never moved an  inch. It wasn't like he actually missed it as it hit right where he was aiming.  Just bad luck at a bad time.

Of course it was the right side of the line.  Not sure who was lined up there, though.

Probably Bobby Carpenter.   ::)

another key miss today

You can't keep hanging games on 50+ yard field goals and not scoring the whole second half.  Not to mention the guy's a rookie. 

Two flaws:

1) It was from 53 yards.  You can not expect a kicker to make all his 50+ yard attempts. 

2) Would not have changed the game.  Dolphins lost by 4, and they were not in close to FG range at the end of the game.   

The problem I see is that he has missed multiple kicks this year, and he missed badly.  Maybe he was trying too hard to get that extra distance.  He is a good kicker though, has kicked some out of the endzone on kickoffs.

I don't completely agree with your second point.  If Miami was up by 6, then Carolina HAS TO get a TD, so it changes play calling.  There is less pressure on Carolina if they know they just have to get to field goal range to force OT, since Miami was only up by 3.

I mentioned this in the Jets game day thread:

Sturgis really does have the yips, especially early on in the game. The guy seemed to be automatic until he missed his first one against the Ravens, now you could toss a coin. With what's come out with the Martin/Incognito situation, you have to wonder how much additional pressure is being heaped on this rookie every time he misses.

If it was just a matter of missing a few kicks, I could understand it and might be hopeful that things would improve, but Sturgis is having SIGNIFICANT problems on kickoffs. These are set, no pressure situations where he just needs to boot the damn ball out of the endzone. Gostkowski does so nearly 70% of the time. Sturgis barely 50%, good for 22nd in the league.

That's just not good enough and makes me doubt that it's just a mental issue.

I think you need to look at things a bit deeper than that though. Remember the ball carries differently in Miami than it does in other cities. Using a rough estimation (the number of field goals and TDs scored for and against with an additional kickoff added for and against at game start & halftime) it would appear the Dolphins have received roughly 56 kickoffs and had returns on 27 of those while the Dolphins have kicked off 55 times and had 29 returned. Those numbers make it look much closer than a hand picked stat.

I'm on the fence about him.  I think he will be a really good kicker in this league although he has had some hiccups.  I went in to this year thinking it was going to be a growing year and next we would make a serious run.  I'd bring someone in to next year's camp , as I'm sure they will, but I wouldn't be above keeping him for another year.

There are differences between venues, sure, but even your numbers suggest that the Dolphins are somewhat below average in the touchback department (i.e. probably no better than 17th, whereas the full numbers say 22, which increases to 20 if you discount the two kickers without a lot of kicks).

That kind of below-average performance just isn't what should be expected from a high-powered young kicker. Inconsistency, sure, problems with precision on long kicks, sure, but not touchback performance. So when you COMBINE poor field goal kicking with too many short kickoffs, well, then I think it's cause for concern.