Time for the Buccaneers to move on from Roberto Aguayo
When the Buccaneers traded up to draft Florida State kicker Roberto Aguayo in the second-round of the 2016 NFL Draft, there were immediate questions.
Some debated Jason Licht, the Buccaneers general manager, was an evil genius while others just said he was evil.
Alas, the acquisition of Aguayo may just become the black-eye on Licht’s rather impressive track record as Tampa’s GM.
He began his rookie year like many do, nervous and inconsistent.
Aguayo made his lone field goal try against Atlanta in Week 1, and added four extra points to the total as well.
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100% for his career didn’t last much longer after that as the NCAA’s most accurate kicker ever missed four of his next seven field goal tries and an extra point before the bye.
A game winning kick against Carolina on Monday Night Football pulled him out of the flames a bit with the fans and media, but not all the way.
When 2016 ended, the rookie was an abysmal 71% on field goals, and 94% on extra points.
He wasn’t the only kicker to miss extra points, granted, but Aguayo was the least accurate of all who tried more than two field goals.
Now, I defended him last year. I said how he was young and just needed a chance to get through the year and heal from his experience.
The Bucs though, gave him quite the notice they weren’t going to wait long when they signed Nick Folk.
In camp, Aguayo has had his good and bad days. So has Folk. However, having a second-round pick on the field who continuously comes short of par is just demoralizing to the team.
Folk isn’t exactly Adam Vinatieri here, but his worst season when he had at least 10 field goal tries came in at 64%, and half of his kicks that year were from 40+ yards away.
This happened in his last year with Dallas, in 2009. Since then, his made field goal percentage hasn’t fallen below 76%. Still not great, but also not 71%.
After missing an extra point and a field goal in the first preseason game of the 2017 season, it’s clear Roberto Aguayo is not the kicker of the future for the Bucs.
Neither is Folk necessarily, but if he makes even just 5% more kicks than his counterpart, I’ll take it.
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