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Field Goals and Chicken
Walks
By Bill Zahren
(Posted 11/14/00)
It’s not a good year for kickers in the National Football
League. They’ve been blowing quadriceps muscles, contracting
strange diseases, shanking extra points, banking 41-yarders
off the uprights, missing the ball entirely. Pretty much every
week some team offers tryouts to 20 or so kickers, trying
to find a new one.
I sympathize with kickers. They’re the writers of the NFL.
Everyone can kick a football! How tough can that be? Sure,
you can kick it, but can you kick it between the uprights
from 49 yards out with 72,091 fans screaming and throwing
voodoo curses at you? Can you nail it knowing that, if you
miss, your own team will mash you into a garbage can after
the game? It’s the Rodney Dangerfield position in football
-- no respect.
Still, I see opportunity here for people with good legs.
So I’m working with my daughters. Hey, they can kick, OK?
I’m getting one of those little nets that kickers warm up
with on the sidelines and let Haley, 9 and Jena, 5 ½, spend
hours drilling a football into it. Video clips of women’s
soccer stars drilling 40 yarders with either leg at half time
of a Kansas City Chiefs game planted the seed: kick ball,
pick up check. Good kickers are making more than $1 million
a year now and, well, retirement is coming.
As part of Operation NFL Kicker, I’m also establishing guidelines
for the girls on this whole celebration thing. We run through
a PowerPoint (it’s all bullets these days) every night covering
when to celebrate and how much. Regular season, game-clinching
field goal? Two-arm, double-fisted victory sign. Super Bowl-winning
51-yarder with no time remaining? Stadium victory lap. Long
field goal when your team is getting crushed? Walk off the
field.
We’re going over it because this celebration thing is out
of hand in the NFL. It all started with Mark Gastineau’s sack
dance in the 1980s, which really pissed off offensive linemen
like me. Soon defensive linemen were gyrating and hitting
imaginary baseballs and goose-stepping all over whenever they
sacked the quarterback. Today, wide receivers and defensive
backs are the worst.
Receivers catch a six-yard out for a first down and spend
five minutes break dancing, pointing at the sky or doing cartwheels
and throat slashes. Big man. You got a first down. Or, if
a d-back breaks up a pass, he’s bouncing all over, thumping
his chest and chicken walking like he just saved some baby
from getting hit by a train. Get over yourself.
It’s painful for a stoic introvert, former offensive lineman
like me to see. You made a good play, but breaking up passes
is kind of your job, ‘kay? You don’t see the center hip-hopping
around after pancaking some mouthy nose guard. (Although I
often celebrate by busting a move while watching at home.
Kick some booty, line brother!) But I’m not standing up and
shaking my groove thing every time I come up with a good sentence
at work. "Yeah, baby. YEAH. That’s what I’m talking about,
baby. See that parallel structure? Don’t bring your B-game,
dangling participles in here. Bill is in the HOUSE." That’s
why I get the large money, to make with the words.
Auto mechanics don’t do hand stands and the splits when they
fix your transmission. Doctors don’t take time out from surgery
to signal fust dahhhhhhhhhn after resecting a bowel.
Yeah, yeah, thrill of the moment and all that, but come
on. Catching a 23-yard post pattern is not all about you,
‘kay? I’m digging people like Barry Sanders, who holds the
NFL record for most simultaneous moves (23) and scored on
some of the most whacked-out, super-freak, gravity-defying
runs ever. Scored, tossed the ball to the ref, headed to the
sideline. What’s the big deal?
Same deal with Walter Payton, who’s right there with Sanders
as the greatest ever. He often gave the ball to an offensive
lineman for spiking. Super Bowl shuffle. NOT. Or my main Viking
man, running back Robert Smith. Bob gets into the end zone
and says, "Yeah, I scored. I’m mildly pleased about it. Here’s
the ball. I’m going to get a beverage. I may or may not smile
about this at some point in the game."
My all-time favorites are the little insider celebrations
that some teams do. I blame this phenomenon on wide receivers
who, as a rule, are as flighty as poodles. They like to posse
up in the end zone and do some bizarre ritual like the St.
Louis Rams dice throwing thing or whatever that was last year.
Nice.
The Green Bay Packers linebackers and defensive backs do
some kind of hand-to-the-side-of-the-helmet ritual to signify
they made a great play in a game they’re losing by two touchdowns.
Impressive.
There are offenders on every team, including my Vikings.
So let’s just get over the sky-pointing, break-dancing, funkasaurus
super-boogie crap. (Insert writer Mick Jagger chicken walking
here in response to using "funkasaurus" in a sentence.)
It’s not all about you, ‘kay? Practice some moderation. Yeah,
you got the right to express yourself on the field but I got
the right to be annoyed by it. On second thought, maybe we’ll
stick to soccer. And, for the record, if Haley or Jena scores
the World Cup winning goal they have my complete permission
and encouragement to show the world their sports bras.
God knows I’ll be half naked in the stands. Here’s the kick,
it’s up it’s ...
© 2000 Bill Zahren
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