Survey results!!
In this week’s Reacts survey, we asked Hogs Haven readers if the team should draft a kicker in the later rounds of this weekend’s draft.
I’m a bit surprised at how little resistance there is to the idea given that Washington has only 5 draft picks in hand.
Only 14% of respondents rejected the notion outright. The remaining 86% were either open to the idea of drafting a kicker, at least under certain conditions, or simply ready to trust Adam Peters to make the right move.
What a long way we have traveled in such a short time to express such confidence in the Washington decision-makers!
In our Reacts polls this year, survey respondents have shown a broad willingness to simply defer to Adam Peters, who seems to have earned that level of trust by hiring a head coach and assembling a roster that — together — reached the NFC Championship game for the first time in 33 years.
Washington fans are likely open to the idea that a kicker can be worthy of a draft pick for several reasons. Of course, the Redskins were the only team to ever have a place kicker win the league MVP award — an accomplishment that was achieved by Mark Moseley in 1982. Also, the fans have had a (b)romance with punter Tress Way that has lasted through a dozen years. Often, Tress’s punting was the only things Washington fans had to cheer about. Finally, the kicking issues that seem to have dogged the franchise for years, and very particularly last year when the team signed (and for the most part, discarded) a half-dozen kickers in as many months reminded us all how important it is to have a reliable kicker on the roster.
In spite of the turmoil, the Commanders got more good play than bad from their kickers last season, with Austin Seibert going 7 of 7 on field goals in Week 2 to provide all the points in a 21-18 home win against the Giants, while Zane Gonzalez made a ‘bank shot’ at the buzzer to beat the Atlanta Falcons in a critical December game that helped seal the Commanders’ #6 playoff seeding, leading to the team’s subsequent success in the playoffs.
Much of the credit for last season’s overall success goes to the starting quarterback and Rookie of the Year, Jayden Daniels, but there seems to be a powerful nexus that runs through a perfect organizational alignment from owner Josh Harris to GM Adam Peters, Head Coach Dan Quinn, and Jayden Daniels and flowing through the entire roster. This alignment of vision and mission allowed the Commanders to over-achieve last season, and offers the possibility to build on that success in this weekend’s draft and into the coming season.
By Sunday, we should know whether or not that will include a freshly-drafted kicker.
Nationally, the email survey, sent to fans of all 32 teams, was used to predict the first 5 selections in tonight’s first round of the draft.
The Titans will go on the clock shortly after 8pm tonight, and then Commanders fans will have a relatively long wait to find out whether GM Adam Peters will make a selection at #29 or whether he will make a deal to trade back and add more draft capital.
It should be interesting when the time comes.
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