G&D aren't telling any secrets - the Commanders' kicking situation is a mess

Following Monday’s show, Grant & Danny wanted to discuss the Commanders’ kicking situation at some point Tuesday, because it simply has been a mess all summer – starting with Brandon McManus’ issues and release, and into the first preseason game.

And now into Tuesday, when Ramiz Ahmed was the roster casualty for the signing of Martavis Bryant, adding another wrinkle to an already awful situation.

“Ahmed only adds to the conversation that the Commanders’ kicking problem seems to be going under the radar a little bit,” Grant said. “The guy that they like more, Riley Patterson, missed his only field goal attempt in the game, and they’ve shown their hand that he’s the guy for the moment – but he had a rough day at practice yesterday, too, clanking some balls off the upright, and Ahmed struggled, too. This is not something that can be a big issue in season, you have to solve this here and now – so how do they do it?”

Kicking has been an issue in DC for years, but at this point, is it waiting for another kicker in camp somewhere to get cut, or is Patterson going to be the guy no matter what?

“They don’t seem to be too worried; they thought they had it solved with Brandon McManus, and we know what happened, but now you're kind of in a position you didn't anticipate,” Danny said, and this is why he thinks so: “They haven’t constantly brought in kickers to work out – like, every person that's kicked a football over the last however many years, please come to Ashburn immediately. Instead, it was signing Ahmed, and then, okay, it’s fine for now.
But it’s not fine for now, so I’m puzzled by that. This is one of a few positions where they seem comfortable that it’s all going to work out, and not very urgent like they have been at other positions.”

“I get the sense based on the way they’ve handled this is that they think somebody is going to get cut who is in a tier above these guys,” Grant replied. “I wonder if the success of Brandon Aubrey, who was a former pro soccer player who kicked in a spring league, has anything to do with it? Dan Quinn was in Dallas, so does that color how you feel about the urgency? I imagine some part of how you view things is past experience, and he was in a building last year where they basically went and got their Ramiz Ahmed, and he became the best kicker in the NFL.”

Maybe, but then Danny wonders why other XFL players or other options have been tried?

“It just seems very cavalier to me,” he said. “It seems to be an issue where if you lose a game by a field goal, it’s not the end of the world because this is not a Super Bowl-caliber team, this year is about Jayden Daniels’ development – but even still just helping to reinforce some of the things that you're trying to implement here with a culture change, you’d rather not have that field goal or extra point cost you a winnable game here or there.
It's a fixable thing that they seem to think will just get fixed at some point.”

Here’s one other thought from Grant, though: given the new kickoff rules, is the fact that a lot of spring league kickers struggle on kickoffs a factor? Maybe, but something’s gotta give somewhere, especially since they actually spent time and good money on landing McManus to solve that problem initially.

“I just know that having one on the roster when the one is not a convincing answer is never a good idea,” GP said. “Maybe they're gonna work guys out tomorrow and they're gonna have a second and they're bringing someone else in who's the favorite, but the kicker they have left was 0-for-1 in the preseason game, did not have a good practice, and has bounced all over the league.”

“This is very Rivera-esque; remember when there were kicking issues and it kept manifesting, and it was fine until it wasn’t?” Danny asked. “I just don’t see the urgency, and I wish I had a better point, but they know more than I do. It's not as if there's a great crop of free agent kickers just sitting there waiting, and the guy you thought was going to solve the problem, something happened and left you in an adverse spot – but if I’m in charge, there’d be a lot more desperation. I’d be burning up the phones a little bit more and there'd be a lot more working out.”