Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Folk Music

No, we're not going into a dissertation on the merits of the songs of Pete Seeger. We're talking Nick Folk, the former kicker for the Dallas Cowboys.

According to ProFootballTalk.com, Folk is headed to the New York area in the next day or two to have tryouts with both the Giants and Jets. The Jets are interested because their own kicker, Jay Feely, is an unrestricted free agent.

The Giants are interested because, well, if the coaches feel the same way a lot of commenters on this blog felt this year, they'd rather see anybody booting kickoffs than Lawrence Tynes.

One should be careful what one wishes for, however. The Cowboys cut Folk before the next-to-last game of the regular season for one good reason -- he missed 10 field goals in his first 14 games this year. And he didn't have a touchback, as the Cowboys handed the kickoff duties to David Buehler from the beginning. Buehler put 29 of his kickoffs into the end zone, while Folk was called in for just two onside kicks. Folk doesn't hit the end zone often anyway, having recorded just four touchbacks in 169 kickoffs between 2007 and 2008.

He has been a very good field goal guy until this year, however, and it might be wise for the Giants to sign him cheap, if only to give Tynes some much-needed and well-advised competition during training camp. We'll keep an eye on that one.

EP

4 comments:

  1. Nobody needs Nick Folk. Why Cant these guys get a real kicker??? What do they have against it. Shayne Graham has had some problems but he could give that competition.

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  2. If a kicker can't reach the endzone on kickoffs i'm not interested.

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  3. Thanks for sharing this very interesting post on Folk Music.

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  4. A lot of teams have one kicker for kickoffs and one for field goals. I know that loses a valuable spot for a "real" football player, but if you can consistently have your opposition starting at their 20 yard line, isn't that worth an extra special teams player? Also, if the kicker gets hurt you have a backup.

    As for Tynes, he scares me everytime he lines up to kick and his kickoffs are always short. People often bring up that he made that kick against Green Bay in the NFC Championship game, in overtime, but if he hadn't missed an earlier kick, they never would have had to go to overtime. THink of all the trouble that would have been solved if the Giants had just kept Matt Stover all these years!

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