Bills can forget about Lindell until they need him

By Anthony Bialy  |   Thursday, July 10, 2008  |  Comments( 78 )

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Kickers are as disposable as coffee filters in the NFL, as a bad reputation can sabotage a career even faster than a bad performance. Take Mike Vanderjagt: The most consistent field goal man in league history (86.4 percent success mark) had a perfect season in 2003, yet is viewed as such an unstable commodity that he’s sunk to competing in the Canadian Football League. Vanderjagt’s return to the Toronto Argonauts is the best example of why those at the position should bank as much of their checks as possible, as they’re often forgotten as suddenly and deservedly as Limp Bizkit.

In this regard, the Bills are extensively fortunate to possess Rian Lindell, who has emerged as a dependably valuable weapon over the past two seasons. That’s especially true when one considers how close he was to being sent to oblivion, or wherever it is marginalized kickers wait for a general manager’s call.

Notably, he has outgrown his shakiness, as when Lindell fell short on an alarming seven of 24 field goal attempts in his first season as a Bill in 2003. At the time, he appeared worthy of the worst title in football, namely a special teams flop; it took him awhile to get comfortable, and the remarkably patient Bills have been rewarded for suffering through his initial lapses.

It didn’t happen right away. Even though his percentage of triumph shot up to 85.7 percent in 2004, part of that was perversely a result of his own unreliability: The coaches had so little faith in Lindell's leg strength that they were unwilling to even let him try long field goals, preferring to play a field position punt-centric game rather than permit an unlikely stab at three points.

He couldn’t miss what he never tried. Lindell’s apparent lack of futility only took place for the same reason Nigella Lawson hasn’t rejected my overtures to meet for coffee and/or get married, namely I’ve never even made the attempt on account of the fact that it would be undoubtedly doomed to failure.

However, the Washington State product has steadied himself to the point where his teammates can usually skip holding their breath when the field goal unit takes a snap. It’s evidenced by the way he was on target 92 percent of the time in 2006 and 88.9 percent last year, as he sent 24 of 27 attempts through the uprights during the latter campaign.

Plus, unlike as the way things went earlier in Lindell's career, there haven’t been moments where the staff has been wary of using the Portland, Ore. native. For example, his longest field goals in his first two Buffalo seasons were 44 and 43 yards, respectively, while he made a 53-yarder in both ’05 and ’06 while sending through a 52-yard kick last season. He’s both taking and making long tries now.

Still, a bit of subconscious apprehension is understandable for anyone who remembers his notorious misses early in his Bills career, something that still occasionally plagues him: Most memorably, his fruitless attempt late against Indianapolis in 2006 doomed Buffalo's chances for a fabulous upset. The counterargument is that the squad blew other opportunities to win, but the fact is that he missed scoring three in a game the Bills lost by one. Kickers need to be unfailingly clutch, as football’s nature means that teams can overcome weak efforts if their special teams’ scorer can make good on his rare chances.

But thankfully for the Bills, Lindell has evolved to the point where letdowns are an aberration, or, in the case of extra points, literally don’t happen at all. Missing a point after is at best irritating and at worst the sort of thing that can bite a team on its hide in a narrow-margined game, but that’s never been a problem for Lindell, who has 248 conversions and zero misses over a career that includes three seasons in Seattle. Even if everyone has the right to anticipate that the kicker will add that seventh point every single time, the fact remains that absolutely constant success is a nice plus.

Ideally, we would never think of placekickers, and the next-best scenario is to only bring them to mind for a handful of seconds when they step off the sidelines on fourth downs; at best, they should then provoke only a few anxious moments before paying off on expectations. Lindell is emerging as the best kind of player at his position, one who’s easy to ignore until he goes out and does what he’s supposed to when called on.
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CommentsComments: 78  |  Sign Up  View all comments
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No.1
07:04 AM
07/11/2008
Lindell has come along nicely, and he will most likely be called upon to win some important games for the Bills this year. I ...
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No.2
LGB		07:26 AM
07/11/2008
Lindell missed a FG against the Steeler backups that might have helped the Bills to have at least one playoff appearance in this ...
No.3
07:32 AM
07/11/2008
Hey Joe P. even Veniteri misses them. He's been fortunate enough to have gotten the opportunity to redeem himself with game ...
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