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It Turns Out Graham Gano Isn't Terrible (Breakdown of Every Block Last Season)

jwpanic

By jwpanic
in The Stadium

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jwpanic

jwpanic

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The gold folks at Blogging the Beast did a film breakdown of all 5 FG attempts Gano had blocked last season and ultimately decided NONE of them were the fault of our much-maligned kicker. Each block was basically the result of the other team manhandling our o-line.

Here's the link: http://bloggingthebeast.com/2012/05/11/film-breakdown-a-closer-look-at-the-5-fg-attempts-the-redskins-had-blocked-in-2011/

The amount of blocks last season was an embarrassment but you clearly can't blame Gano after looking at the film. With better blocking (and a competent special teams coach, perhaps?) Gano has all the tools to be one of the best kickers in the league for a long time. I just hope we don't make another David Akers-esque mistake and cut him prematurely.

On a incredibly depressing side note, the skins were on the wrong end of 17% of the NFL's blocked FG's/PAT's last season. :doh:

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Gibbs Hog Heaven

Gibbs Hog Heaven

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Conversely, even without the blocks, he's still missed 15 kicks the past 2 years, which had him dead last in the league in 2010 with 10 misses, and joint eighth worst in the league with 5 misses last year. (Tied with 4 other players.).

If Rackers can't beat him out in camp he doesn't deserve to be here.

Hail.

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HeluCopter29

HeluCopter29

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The interesting part of this, is if you take out those 5 blocks, he's an 86% kicker at 31/36. And if he had made all 5, he's an 88% kicker at 36/41. Hell just by making 3 out of 5 he's at 83% with 34/41. To put that in some perspective, Matt Bryant led the league this year with 93%.

Gano's not exactly Mark Mosely, but he's 24 and 1-2 more years of experience and I think we'll have a good kicker. Looks like patience wins out in the end. Let's hope we give that to RGIII.

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daveakl

daveakl

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Other players who were in the 83%-86% range (assuming he makes those 5 at the same rate he made his others)

Dan Bailey

Mason Crosby

Dan Carpenter

Adam Vinatari

Stephen Gostkowski

David Akers

Neil Rackers

Steven Hauschka

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daveakl

daveakl

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I'll give you his kick-off ability Bur man. He sure has a leg for that. Just don't ask him to directional kick it. (4 KO's out of bounds the last two years is a joke in itself.).

Hail.

Doesn't that make you think that maybe the coach should play up to his strength (kick it out the back) instead of trying to have him do something he is not good at?

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jwpanic

jwpanic

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I'll give you his kick-off ability Bur man. He sure has a leg for that. Just don't ask him to directional kick it. (4 KO's out of bounds the last two years is a joke in itself.).

Hail.

the only person asking him to directional kick it is danny smith.

gano can kick it out of the back of the end zone every time, no problem. why ask him to do anything but?

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TSO

TSO

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This article was posted in the Free Agency thread and I thought it really deserved it's own thread considering the good discussion it should generate. I gave a response in that thread and thought it should go in here now to not divert the discussion there anymore:

I honestly think this deserves it's own thread... you shouldn't hesitate to put something that should generate good discussion on the front page. :)

I read the entire article (which was excellent by the way) and, to me, this actually puts Danny in a better light. Now, of course, I'm a bit biased seeing I've always sided with him more and have argued my points (with no animosity) against Bang a ton of times, but I think a valid argument can be made here for Danny Smith and not against him.

What this article fails to mention is that our Oline was filled with nothing but smaller, more athletic ZBS - types. This obviously affected Danny's FG unit so much that he had to start putting Dlinemen in there to block hoping they wouldn't be pushed back. Well, they were as well. When he later returned to guys like Tyler Polumbus, they were getting pushed back as well due to their size. I think it's not easy for Danny to assemble a solid line on the FG unit working with the backups we've had on the Oline there who were all smaller guys that fit the ZBS.

For so long a large segment on ES that have been anti-Danny simply could not grasp why he was so respected around the league and why he managed to stay on as a coach here for so long when it's so obvious to them he sucks. Well, my answer was always two fold. One, that the coaches knew he had almost nothing to work with since our depth was always pathetic (we all know under Vinny that our roster was top-heavy and that as soon as a starter went down it was over) and those are the guys who play on Special Teams and, two, that he wasn't nearly as bad as we thought when looking at his stats in comparison to other Special Teams units around the NFL. On the second point, it may have just been a case of bad timing (penalties/blocks/gaffes would occur when we needed it most and, therefore, would stand out more to us fans) as well as the fact that we've had such a poor offense for so long that every missed opportunity to score that came from a mistake on Special Teams was magnified. Other teams like the Pats (who Danny's unit compared well to) score enough points offensively that their Special Teams mistakes are easily overlooked.

But now there's a third reason that has occurred under Shanahan, which is why Danny is not on the hot seat as opposed to other coaches. Shanahan has shown no hesitation to let go of coaches he thinks aren't getting it done or won't be able to in the future, so the question always posed by Danny's critics has been why is it not the same with him? I think the answer includes both of the answers I've mentioned above as well as one more; that Danny has been given poor blockers on his FG units simply due to the scheme Shanahan employs.

Hopefully, that has been addressed through the draft and the guys we got will improve that unit as well.

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Gibbs Hog Heaven

Gibbs Hog Heaven

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This article was posted in the Free Agency thread and I thought it really deserved it's own thread considering the good discussion it should generate. I gave a response in that thread and thought it should go in here now to not divert the discussion there anymore:

BAN this reprobrate for quoting a LONG piece. :silly:

*Just don't tell his wife. She skeers me. :paranoid:

Hail.

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Kelvin Bryant

Kelvin Bryant

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The interesting part of this, is if you take out those 5 blocks, he's an 86% kicker at 31/36. And if he had made all 5, he's an 88% kicker at 36/41. Hell just by making 3 out of 5 he's at 83% with 34/41. To put that in some perspective, Matt Bryant led the league this year with 93%.

Gano's not exactly Mark Mosely, but he's 24 and 1-2 more years of experience and I think we'll have a good kicker. Looks like patience wins out in the end. Let's hope we give that to RGIII.

Interestingly, Moseley's career average was only 65.6% including 20 for 21 in 1982. That's how much kickers have improved.

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1972FAN

1972FAN

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Other players who were in the 83%-86% range (assuming he makes those 5 at the same rate he made his others)

Dan Bailey

Mason Crosby

Dan Carpenter

Adam Vinatari

Stephen Gostkowski

David Akers

Neil Rackers

Steven Hauschka

Thats a nice crowd to be associated with.

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Dirt

Dirt

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the only person asking him to directional kick it is danny smith.

gano can kick it out of the back of the end zone every time, no problem. why ask him to do anything but?

While I do agree Danny's a dummy for trying it... for what it's worth, the play can make a turnover, and it has. I remember us getting it once (texans?), and the guy looked ridiculous trying to catch it right there past the pylon; players can't help but try to catch it and make a play, it's why they use another player to actually, physically if necessary, stop the returner from trying ****. Had that guy just let the ball go, it would have gone out of bounds and been a penalty. Perhaps it's as simple as teams seeing film on Redskins week, noting that we like to try that kick, and making sure their returners don't fall for it. So perhaps danny smith should stop freakin doing it. lol I can't stand that guy

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Hitman21ST

Hitman21ST

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i get the hate for danny smith when it comes to kicking, but the redskins were like top 5 or 10 in return yards allowed. Maybe they need to bring in a kicking guy? The special teams in general is very strong

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to coach up ST (not saying anyone off the street can do it, but any coach worth his salt should be able to field a decent KO team).

And when you have a kicker who can kick it out of the end zone 4/5 times (if not more) then that's what you have him do. They can't return it if it's out of the end zone.

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MumboSauce

MumboSauce

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Beyond the 14 misses in two season as a poster stated, I key in on the timing...when the kicks were missed. Clutch kicking matters to me..I haven't done the research so I'm not sure where Gano falls in that area. It's like a corner that gets burned early in the game and you're like..ahhhh...this guy stinks. but gets a deflection to stop a td later in the game or gets a game changing int and takes it to the house. Nothing wrong with competition(Rackers) but I like Gano.

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