Good news: linebacker Lofa Tatupu will be in Seattle through 2015 after signing a six-year, $40 million deal last week. More good news: the team also inked cornerback Marcus Trufant to a six-year, $50 million contract. Bad news: the Seahawks have decided to replace Josh Brown, one of the league's best kickers, with Olindo Mare, one of the league's worst kickers.
Okay, that's probably an overstatement, but there's no disputing that Mare had an embarrassingly awful 2007 season with the Saints. It was so bad, in fact, that New Orleans released Mare a year after trading for him. And that was after they had signed Martin Gramatica as insurance. If a team has to bring in "Automatica," your job's probably up for grabs. Which shouldn't have been completely unexpected since Mare converted a whopping 59 percent of his kicks last year, and eight of those games were played indoors.
What does this mean for the Seahawks? Well, they better score a lot of points, because Mare is nowhere near the player he was in Miami. Or the player that Josh Brown is in St. Louis. Which makes you wonder why Seattle didn't make more of an effort to keep him.
Hat tip: ProFootballTalk.com
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-27-2008 @ 11:47PM
jay said...
TJ Duckett and Julius Jones. I can't think of two more overrated players. Duckett is OK at best. Jones is good at best, not to be confused with great.
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3-28-2008 @ 12:21AM
George B Vieto said...
Seahawk fans can only hope that Olindo Mare is not the Seahawk version of Chip Lohmiller when Morten Andersen left the Saints for the Falcons and Chip bombed out in New Orleans as a place kicker.
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3-28-2008 @ 7:46PM
Buvi Duvi said...
O. Mare isn't there to have the job. He is there to push the rookie they draft. He will be cut before the first preseason game.
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3-29-2008 @ 3:35PM
Peter said...
Mare isn't as bad as last year indicates. Field goals are extremely unpredictable for one, and that 58% completion percentage came off of an extremely small sample size: Only 17 attempts. Every other year of his career Mare has never had a completion percentage less than 72% and most of those years have been over 80%. Two, several of those misses came as he was playing through injury. Three, the other indications of how good he is as a kicker, aside from unpredictable completion percentage (average Kickoff length and Touchback ratio) were both a lot better than Josh Brown's last year, and every other year of Mare's career.
Josh Brown has a career kickoff length average of 62.5 yards and averages a touchback every 11.1 attempts. Olindo Mare has a career kickoff length average of 63.9 yards and averages a touchback every 4.5 attempts. In other words, Mare might actually be a better kicker than Brown, but the Seahawks get to pay peanuts for Mare instead of making Josh Brown the highest paid kicker in NFL history.
Sounds like a good deal to me. I am sure we will either draft or sign a rookie to compete with him, but I doubt that guy will end up beating Mare out for the job.
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4-02-2008 @ 4:43PM
alba said...
Which makes you wonder why Seattle didn't make more of an effort to keep him.
Because throwing $3M plus at ANY kicker, even one as endearing and consistent as Josh Brown, is just stoopid, as the Lambs will soon find out!
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