Shurmur is Not Frustrated with Giants Kicking Game

Giants kicker Aldrick Rosas hasn't had many opportunities to kick field goals or PATs for that matter this year, so when he misses a kick as he did twice this week, the miscue is magnified tenfold.

In the grand scheme of things, the Giants as a whole didn't play well enough to win their game against the Chicago Bears.

But still, if only kicker Aldrick Rosas had not missed two second-quarter field goal attempts of 42 and 43 yards, maybe, just maybe the Giants' six-game slide would have ended.

Such was not the case, as the performance of Rosas, who has now missed either a PAT or a field goal in each of his last five games, has reached a level to where each scoring attempt becomes an adventure.

To be fair, not all of Rosas' misses are on him--his first miss against the Bears was a result of long snapper Zak DeOssie rolling the ball back to holder Riley Dixon, which appeared to throw off Rosas' timing.

But the unit definitely is in a funk with seemingly no end in sight.

"I think it's pretty obvious what happened today, right?" head coach Pat Shurmur said when asked what's going on with the kicking. 

"We just didn't make them. There's three parts to it, right? You have to snap, have to hold, have to kick. We missed two today. But we've just got to move past that."

The same could be said of mises in subsequent weeks, yet the issues continue to plague what was once a unit that was the very definition of reliable.  Yet despite the unit's struggles, Shurmur said he wasn't frustrated with the kicking game's shortcomings; "just disappointed."

Rosas, who spoke in hushed tones after the game, insisted that his confidence isn't shaken despite this rough patch he's hit.

“I don’t feel different at all," he said. "That was my third year in. I’ve been through the ups and downs already. My confidence isn’t shaken at all. Every time I walk on that field, we expect to make the kick. I expect to make it. It’s just got to go through.”

Shurmur said that there are some "little fundamental, technical things" with the kicking game that have popped up, but added, "The reality of it is you got to make them."

Rosas agreed. 

“It’s just, 'Get after the next kick.' That’s all I can do," he said. "As a unit, we just need to put the points up on the board when they are presented.”

Rosas is now 8 of 12 in field goal attempts and 19 of 22 in PATs.