Special Teams / Draft Question

[Terrible Towlie]

One thing I havn't seen alot of people talk about this offseason is the state of both of our kicking games.

I think field position was a major factor in some of our losses last year.

Yes, Suisham did well in terms of FG accuracy (mid range), but the fact that he cant consistently force touchbacks on his kickoffs is a major problem. How many times did teams start their drive (well past the 20), because he didn't kick it deep enough?

Butler IMO sucks.

I understand that K and P are sometimes looked at as a dime a dozen, but after watching Justin Tucker do a great job last year and Zuerlein (sorry for the spelling).....................Are there any K / P in the draft that would be worth taking a shot at in the 6-7th rounds? I would rather waste a 6th/7th round pick on a possible (Andy Lee/Sam Koch) type, than a OL/DL, etc that statistically has no chance of making the team. I don't know. Call me crazy, but it totally frustrated me last year watching our kicking games give up so much yardage.

[flippy]

We desperately need a punter and could use a young kicker with a leg eventually.

Our punter gets no hang time, kicks out of bounds when we're pinned inside our own 20, and likes to kick down the middle toward the end zone when we've got a short field. No player frustrated me more this year. I never understood why we kept him in the first place.

I also think we had a good young K in camp last year that beat out Sushi, but we went with Sushi's experience. At the end of the day, Tomlin likes trying 55 yardish FGs and we have a lot of close games. Sushi can't kick 55 yardish FGs. Gotta get a player that fits Tomlin's strategy.