Tag: sam ficken

[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbyh7crnrcs3ypf player_id=none image=https://titanswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]

The Tennessee Titans are in a familiar place once again: they are looking for a new kicker after releasing Michael Badgley, who missed one field goal and an extra point during the Week 1 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

At the moment, the Titans have a blank space at the kicker position on their updated depth chart. On the bright side, at least the blank space has never missed a field goal.

The only kicker on the team is veteran Randy Bullock, who was signed to the practice squad late last week.

While one would assume Bullock is the next in line to try his hand at the position for Tennessee, head coach Mike Vrabel says the team will give others a look before making a final decision, per David Boclair of SI.

“[We will] determine who we feel like will make them,” Vrabel said. “… We’ll take a look at some guys working out. (Bullock) is on the practice squad. Find somebody that we think’s going to make them and protect for him. That’s the plan.”

Vrabel can call that a plan all he wants, but in reality the Titans don’t have one — and it seems they never had one to begin with, which is unfathomable for a team that has had the worst field goal unit in the NFL the past two seasons and has seen 12 kickers come and go since 2019.

(We took a trip down memory lane and went over all of them in a separate article. If you can stomach it, you can check that out right here.)

The plan should have been to make kicker among the team’s top priorities in free agency, and it’s something we were screaming about all offseason long.

For whatever reason, Stephen Gostkowski hasn’t been brought back. He remains unsigned, and there’s no indication he’s retiring, so it’s anyone’s guess what’s going on there.

Granted, Gostkowski had his own struggles in the first half of last year, but he righted the ship in the second half and was nearly automatic from 50-plus.

Without Gostkowski, the Titans’ master plan for 2021 involved having a training camp competition between a pair of inexperienced kickers, both of whom were former UDFAs in Tucker McCann and rookie Blake Haubeil.

Haubeil flamed out quickly and was cut, opening the door for Sam Ficken, who was signed off the scrap heap and ultimately won the job over McCann, who suffered an injury during the preseason to make Ficken’s life easier.

To his credit, Ficken looked good during the preseason and did earn the job, but he suffered an injury himself in the days leading up to Week 1, which led to the Badgley experiment that failed miserably.

To be somewhat fair, it’s hard to account for a late injury like that and find a suitable replacement on such short notice.

However, it’s not like Ficken was this top-notch, established kicker when he arrived. As we already mentioned, he was on the scrap heap after being waived by the New York Jets of all teams.

Even if Ficken does come back after his IR stint, he’s far from a guarantee, as his career success rate of 72.9 percent doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that he can fix this mess.

Had the Titans done more to address the position with a more established option this offseason, and that established option got hurt like Ficken did, we’d be much more understanding.

But that didn’t happen, so we’re not understanding.

Vrabel and general manager Jon Robinson have a mess on their hands and they have nobody to blame but themselves after neglecting the position. It didn’t happen in Week 1 because the Titans got blown out, but it’s only a matter of time before the team’s shaky situation at kicker wrecks a game.

[listicle id=71237]