It's Time For Seahawks to Re-Evaluate Kicker Position
By going 24-for-24 on field goal attempts in 2020, Jason Myers became just the third kicker in NFL history to achieve perfection in a single season on 20 or more tries. Unfortunately, he was not only unable to maintain that level of production a year later, but he regressed to the point of being one of the league's least efficient kickers across the board.
Among the 31 kickers with 15 or more field goal attempts during the 2021 campaign, Myers ranked 28th in overall field goal percentage (73.9 percent), tied-26th on attempts from 40 to 49 yards (60 percent) and tied-20th on attempts from 50 to 59 yards (60 percent). He also missed a trio of extra points, further highlighting his career-long struggles in that department. He now sits 44th out of 51 qualified kickers in PAT success rate since he entered the league in 2015, coming in at a clip of 90.2 percent (239-of-265).
Now, Myers enters the final year of the four-year, $15.4 million contract he signed with the Seahawks back in 2019. According to OverTheCap.com, his 2022 cap hit of $5 million accounts for 2.3 percent of the team's salary cap, which is currently projected by the outlet to have $36.5 million in available funds—the eighth-highest mark in the NFL. But that money is expected to go quickly as Seattle aims to re-sign several of its impending free agents, including safety Quandre Diggs and cornerback D.J. Reed.
If cut, Myers would save the organization $4 million and incur just a $1 million dead cap hit. With the kind of year he's coming off of, that's just too hefty a price tag—even if a bounceback of some kind is in order. Unless he's willing to restructure his current deal to avoid hitting the open market, it would behoove the Seahawks to move on and look elsewhere for a more affordable option, whether that takes them to free agency or this April's draft.
Going by the numbers Myers just posted, frankly, they shouldn't run into any issues finding a capable replacement. Unrestricted free agent kickers Nick Folk (fifth, 92.3 percent), Zane Gonzalez (seventh, 90.9 percent), Dustin Hopkins (12th, 88.2 percent), Randy Bullock (tied-20th, 83.9 percent) and Michael Badgley (24th, 81.8 percent) all recorded higher field goal percentages in 2021. Seattle also owns a pair of fourth-round draft selections—along with picks in the fifth and seventh rounds as well—that it could use to target a kicking prospect, especially after seeing the rookie success of Bengals kicker Evan McPherson. Texas' Cameron Dicker and Iowa State's Andrew Mevis, who are currently showcasing their skills at the 2022 Senior Bowl, could be options.
But it's not just the leg that makes a kicking operation run smoothly. Fortunately for the Seahawks, they have the benefit of a consistent holder in punter Michael Dickson and a Pro Bowl long snapper in Tyler Ott. Whoever they potentially bring in to replace Myers would be set up well for success.
After finishing dead-last in the NFC West for the first time since joining the division in 2002, Seattle cannot settle for mediocrity on its roster—and that extends to a special teams unit that was otherwise brilliant under coordinator Larry Izzo. Simply put: sacrificing $4 million of precious cap space for bottom-of-the-league production is just not an option.
