The Curious Case of Jason Sanders
What is going on with Jason Sanders?
It's truly a baffling case with the Miami Dolphins kicker, who seemingly couldn't miss in 2020 when he earned All-Pro recognition but now seemingly can't even be considered a sure thing even for short- or medium-range field goal attempts.
Dolphins special teams coach Danny Crossman says there's absolutely nothing going on other than the thin line between success and failure is going the wrong way right now and that Sanders will be fine before too long.
But maybe there is some weird way to explain Sanders' struggles, and we can call it the Chad Pennington Effect.
Go look at Pennington's year-by-year stats and you'll be stunned by how he seemingly always had success in even-numbered years and always struggled (either with performance or injuries) in odd-numbered years. It's truly remarkable.
His magical season with the Dolphins when he was among the leading vote-getters for MVP honors was 2008. The very next year, 2009, his season was cut short early by a shoulder injury. His best years with the Jets? 2002, 2004 and 2006.
Well, the same thing seems to be happening to Sanders, who was very good as a rookie in 2018, took a dip in 2019, had a magical season in 2020 and now is struggling.
How bad is it for Sanders right now? After his 32-yard attempt clanked off the right upright Sunday, he's 13-for-18 this season and his .722 success rate is 37th in the NFL.
His success rates as an NFL kicker: .900 in 2018, .767 in 2019, .923 in 2020, .722 in 2021.
Again, Crossman insists Sanders is the same kicker as he's always been.
"Well, obviously you know where we have complete confidence in Jason first and foremost, but as you know in this profession, especially in that job, the fine line between being successful and not being successful it's twice now that at the end of the half, bang, off the upright but we again we haven't complete confidence and it's small things we'll keep working on and Jason will be fine.
"There's nothing different. He's been in the same for the three years that I've had (him). So we just keep fine-tuning and keep working and keep grinding. Something about Jason, he's a worker, so we'll get that taken care of."
Rest assured, Sanders isn't the first NFL kicker to struggle with consistency from year to year, but the Dolphins obviously thought that wouldn't be an issue when they signed him a contract extension in the offseason before he headed into the final year of his rookie deal.
Sanders now is the fourth-highest-paid kicker in the NFL based on yearly average, according to overthecap.com, behind only Justin Tucker, Graham Gano and Ka'imi Fairbairn.
And the reality is that 13-for-18 just isn't going to cut it. And neither is a continuing pattern of one good, one bad year, one good year, one bad year.
Make no mistake, Sanders was a big part of the team's 10-6 finish last season, and not just because of his game-winning kick at Las Vegas in Week 16.
His .923 field goal percentage set a franchise record that had been set by Jay Feely in 2007 and matched by Cody Parkey in 2017.
And, strangely enough, neither Feely nor Parkey got the chance to show the Dolphins their record-setting performance was a fluke because the Dolphins waived Feely in August 2008 in favor of rookie free agent and because Parkey left as an unrestricted free agent in the spring of 2018 before Miami selected Sanders in the seventh round of the draft some six weeks later.
The Dolphins wanted to make sure to hang on to Sanders this time, which is why they made him the first pending 2022 UFA to get a contract extension, a decision that unfortunately isn't looking great so far.
But Crossman was adamant Tuesday morning that there's nothing wrong with either Sanders, the field goal operation or new holder Michael Palardy.
"It's small subtleties of what guys you're asking them to do, that the slightest little thing in our room referred to as splitting hairs," Crossman said. "I mean, things have such a small margin that you can't even see them. But when those little things do crop up, that can be the difference between a make and miss and then you throw the rest of the elements into it, whether it be the distance of the kick, the weather, the wind, whatever it may be. You may run into some misses. But again, we have complete confidence in Jason when and we'll get this sorted out."
