New York Giants: Will there be a kicker debate during Giants camp?
By Nico Doria
An underrated battle during New York Giants camp this summer will be the battles between place-kickers and punters.
The kickers for the New York Giants, Aldrick Rosas and Marshall Koehn, will square up. The punting battle is Taylor Symmank and Riley Dixon going at it.
Right now, not much hype is going to be surrounding these two battles throughout camp.
That is because most of the attention will be towards Odell Beckham Jr.’s possible new contract, Saquon Barkley’s thighs, or perhaps seeing if rookie Will Hernandez starts another fight at practice.
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All joking aside, the New York Giants will have a lot of battles to watch entering camp and the kicking one might be the biggest and most intriguing.
There is not much word out on who is leading these battles as New York Giants camp opened up just this past week. However, hopefully one kicker and punter will run away with their respective jobs.
Having a consistent placekicker in the NFL is like having a top tier closer in the MLB. Your team can provide you with all the work leading up to the final inning or play, but if you blow it, the blame can be solely on your shoulders.
Just look at a team like the Los Angeles Chargers last season. The Chargers used four different place kickers and they missed a couple of game winning field goals. If they were hit it would have propelled them into the playoffs.
Also, look at a team like the New England Patriots. For 11 years Stephen Gostkowski has been a model of consistency and precision allowing the Patriots to use him as a handicap if a offensive possession stalls.
As for a punter, any New York Giants fans reading this understands the importance of a punter (remember Matt Dodge?).
So, what the Giants need to do entering camp is solidify these two key positional battles that can decide so much between field position or scoring in a given contest.
The Giants haven’t had a steady kicker since the days of Lawrence Tynes kicking the Giants to the Super Bowl.
As for punters, since the Jeff Feagles era, we have seen the Matt Dodge experiment fail miserably, and Steve Weatherford and Brad Wing only have short stints with the team.
Kickers and punters might not get all the glamour and hype of a generational second round pick or a top three wide receiver in the NFL.
But, they can very much decide a game. If the Giants blow another chance at landing solid kickers to rely on, well, thank god players like DeSean Jackson aren’t in the NFC East anymore.