Chad Kelly to Compete in National PPK

By Hugo Guzman  |   Thursday, January 20, 2005  |  Comments( 0 )

Buffalo Bills
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Chad Kelly, the 10-year-old nephew of Bills Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly, has an NFL hero but it's not the one you'd think.

Chad, the son of Jim's brother Kevin, will be making his second appearance at the annual NFL Pepsi Punt, Pass & Kick skills competition for boys and girls between the ages of 8-15. Chad won the national competition in the 8-9-year-old division last year in Kansas City. This year the Grand Island resident is once again among the 32 finalists out of 3.5 million kids in four age groups despite competing in the 10-11-year-old division where he is the only 10-year-old remaining.

While preparing for the national competition this week in Pittsburgh, Chad took some pointers from his favorite Bills player, punter Brian Moorman.

"He loves to punt and Brian Moorman is his idle," said his father Kevin. "Kids just love to kick the ball."

Moorman spent about 45 minutes breaking down the fundamentals of punting with Chad in the Buffalo Bills FieldHouse.

The fourth-year Bills punter stressed the importance of dropping the football and following through the kick in a straight-fluid motion. By the end of the instructional session an improvement was shown in Chad's punts.

That's bad news for his competition Saturday in Pittsburgh before the Steelers' playoff game against the New York Jets.

Despite winning the team championship and finishing as the fourth and final national qualifier with a total score of 289, 10 of the 32 team qualifiers, including the three that placed ahead of him, connected on a longer punt than Chad.

Ironically, it could be a Kelly foot that makes the difference in whether or not a second Punt, Pass & Kick title is in store.

Chad qualified with a punt of 86 feet and 9 inches. The three boys that placed ahead of him had punts of 104 feet (Green Bay), 114 feet (Arizona), and 96 feet (San Diego), respectively. Chad's distances are comparable to the other qualifiers in both the pass and kick, making the punting portion that much more critical to Chad's success.

"He increased about 8-10 yards overall from last year," his father said. "We had no idea he'd go this far this year, competing in a higher division. We thought maybe the first or the second round."
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About Hugo Guzman

Trying to bring an objective approach to NFL analysis.
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