That 56 yarder against Montreal was a beauty. And his punting and kick-offs are consistently good and well placed. Once he fiqures out the winds at THF, he will be a major asset.
Still prefer TDs, but nice to have a long range kicker on the bench, ready to boot.
Agree and disagree.
Love this guy. He has been amazing. But it also shows that if you beat the bushes enough you can find replacement import kickers out there. So I am fine if we resign him but I don't care to over pay for his services like Loserpeg did for JM.
Here’s the problem with Medlock and don’t get me wrong, he’s one of the best kickers in the league. The problem is he wants big money as a kicker, and that’s not to say he isn’t proven to be worth it.
Fundamentally the issue is, you can win a Grey Cup with a good but not great kicker, you can’t win a Grey Cup without a solid QB, or a strong defense or a couple of weapons of Offense. Something had to give, and it was Medlock’s salary.
Maher costs a lot less and maybe he isn’t doing quite as well (although you wouldn’t be able to tell that based on the last game) the cap he’s freed up to me, is the right move.
The issue with Medlock is that he's only good when he has a holder (FG's and converts), but is subpar with kicking tee's (kickoffs) and his own hands (punts), so he certainly doesn't deserve 175K.
From my personal perspective, there are "X" many guys you need on a team.
There are "Y" many dollars to pay them with.
You win football games with a QB, a RB and a few receivers that score TD's, and a Defence that eats their opponents. Typically, you need to pay these guys some pretty good coin to do that, which is why you have rookies on short term contracts, who, for what its worth, are sort of underpaid, until they prove up.
I don't really care if you can kick an 80 yard FG (And at THF that would be a challenge!), be cause the job is to eat up the clock and score TD's. Punting your team out of trouble is arguably the #1 task.
As 'wonderful' as Medlock was in placements, he didn't get it done with the punts, and JR was left with some hard choices, where there are other guys available, and you want to pay an injured Zack that kind of money, and ST's are hopefully on the field infrequently. (Hopefully, after your TD's!)
Maher is proving to be a great acquisition, but lets hope he understands that we really don't want to see him on the field.
We've yet to see kickers who are sufficiently capable (and perhaps never will), but there would be a combination of reliable long distance field-goal kicking and average starting field position that would actually make it a winning strategy to immediately attempt a field goal every time you get in range (assuming the opponent doesn't have an equally capable kicker). You'd probably need to alter your roster composition to include more defensive backups in order to keep fresh defensive players on the field through the skewed time of possession in the opponent's favor, but if you were able to limit them to the typical scoring rate of today's offenses, they wouldn't average enough points per drive to keep pace with your field goals.
Than again, a kicker of such range and reliability might be as unlikely as a running back who's such a giant that nobody can tackle him.
Next time there is an open house, wander onto the field and look at the goal posts from 40 yards away. Kicking field goals is definitely a unique and special skill, and the wind makes you wonder how anyone, ever, kicks one.
He’s made 17 of his 20 field goal attempts, Is 100% in the last 5 games and also ranks second in the league in punting average with 48.5 yards per punt.
Should give kudo's to holder Tasker and Long snapper Crawford
In who cares news, Swayze Waters just got released from the NFL Panthers training camp.
How well Maher has played has to be the biggest surprise, so far, with this year's team. He's been outstanding with the exception of the two games against B.C., missing a couple of short FGs here and only averaging 36.5 yds. punting out there.
Memory failure!
Those missed field goals weren't "short" and he actually went 0/3 on FGs , from 31, 48, and 41 yds. out, in that game. All the FGs he's missed this year were in that one game.
Argos seem to be very happy with Hajrullahu who appears to be having a bounce back year (always felt a bit sorry for him last season).
Als on the other hand have a definite need. Appears that they are primed to release big signing and 2010 draft pick Vaughn Martin (typical of Popp - sign players to big contracts and then try to get a salary reduction or release them) . This apparently would free up cap space to make a play for Swayze Waters - IF he wants to come back to the CFL and subject himself to the gong show that is the larks! I suspect he'll hang around looking for another possible NFL opportunity.