The Feely Affair
So just what were the Chiefs doing with Jay Feely this week?
They brought Feely to Kansas City on Sunday where he made eight of 12 kicks in a workout for the coaches and personnel staffs.
They signed the veteran kicker on Monday and in competition with Nick Novak and Connor Barth, he went out and hit 11 of 15 field goal tries.
There was another kickoff between the three on Tuesday and Feely made 13 of 15 attempts.
Then they released him, just over 24 hours after signing him.
What’s up?
It’s another case of the Chiefs sticking to their plan right now of building through young players and not reaching into free agency every time they’ve got a problem. Sometimes however, the old urges pop up, especially so at the kicking position where any coach would have a 70-year old kicker if he was good inside the 40-yard line and could nail kickoffs.
So they brought Feely in for what was an extended workout. To make that happen, they had to add him to the active roster. He was told this from the start that no roster spot was guaranteed. He was told he was coming into kick for a job.
Now, the fairness of that type of competition can be debated, given the fact he’s been out of work for the last two weeks. Plus, he was faced with all new conditions and a new holder. But remember, the kicking competition was simply kicking. There was no crowd, there were no weather conditions, there wasn’t a rush from an opponent. If he had not been kicking over the weeks since he was released by the Dolphins, then that was his mistake of falling out of shape.
In this extended tryout, Feely made 76.2 percent of his field goal attempts. He was easily third in the fight behind Barth and Novak and thus was out of a roster spot.
This wasn’t about money: the Chiefs have plenty of room under the cap and Feely would not be at the top of the NFL pay scale for kickers. This was about approach.
“If it’s a good veteran and we feel he fits in our system and does what we want him to do, that’s fine,” Edwards said when asked about Feely’s departure. “But you just don’t go out and get a veteran just to say we got a veteran. We did that a little bit last year and it didn’t turn out too well at certain positions. We’re going in another direction.”
He would be speaking of spending money in free agency last year on Damion McIntosh, Napoleon Harris and Donnie Edwards. None of those players had very good seasons last year and there’s a good chance none will be with the team next season.
It also came down to something Edwards has been saying since the end of last year.
“When you say you’re going to have competition is it really competition or are you just saying that?” Edwards said. “To me, when you tell your football team that this thing is all about competition at all positions and then all of a sudden you do otherwise, players know what’s gone on here. You can’t say that’s competition. I’m trying to be fair.
“At the end, these guys (Novak and Barth) have been 85 or 86% charting all the kicks every day. Now, they’ve missed one in the game. If you can get a kicker to kick 80% in the season you take that. Right now they are.”
But Feely has kicked in the league; that was the entire reason he was brought in for a look. Shouldn’t that give him more than a three-day look?
“You weigh all those things, but at the end you have to look where you want to go,” Edwards said. “We didn’t just look at the numbers but the whole package. If you look at him he’s a veteran guy who has been a good kicker in this league. All those things are in his favor. With the other guys, one is a rookie and one has kicked in some games. They don’t have this guy’s pedigree. But that doesn’t mean they can’t kick.
“We did it in a manner we were comfortable doing. It was honest. When you’re in our situation and you’re a young football team I think the easy thing to do is when guys are in a position where there isn’t a favorite you go get a veteran. We’re not doing that. We’re trying to develop a football team; we’re trying to build a football team.”
I’m fine with how this went down. The only question I have left on the tale is:
What were Barth’s and Novak’s stats during the day of competition?
I believe C. Barth was 28 for 30 and Novak was 27 for 30 compared to Feely’s 24 for 30
This still seems like a bit of a dumb move to me. Evaluating a kicker is not really something that can be done in a couple of afternoons. Feely brought legitimate game experience to the table that the other two kickers didn’t, and was still youngish (for a kicker). I wouldn’t think that the Bengal’s would dismiss Graham for having a couple of 75% practices. Its just another example of what looks like disorder in the front office.
If we are running things like the Bungles I’m really worried. They’re on a terrible spiral towards the bottom of the league. They already knew what Feely could do. He’s almost automatic inside the 40. He SUCKED big time on kickoffs. His average kickoff is abysmal and has been getting worse and worse. Herm’s a field position guy, so that is really important.
On the contrary, this shows how together the front office is. They are doing exactly what they said they’d do, give young players a fair opportunity. No more veteran’s preference. No more name for names sake. Herm is fully in charge, with Clark’s backing, to build this team the right way, not the mediocre veteran plug in way of the past. It would have been easy to fall into the old trap of just signing a veteran name that looks good on paper, and go with him. I was skeptical they would do just that when they signed Feeley, because we’ve been conditioned as Chief fans to expect that. But they made him prove he’s better than what we already have. He wasn’t up to the task. Barth, especially, kicked his butt out of town. Feeley deserved nothing other than the opportunity he got, and the only reason he got that was his resume. He was outkicked, badly.
Another example of disorder in (King Carl’s) court. Whether a Novak or Barth at the start neither will likely end the season as Chiefs kicker, my opine.
Feely? He’ll likely be kicking and making said for some NFL team, and probably long after both of KCs current stopgaps are out of the league, this year or thereaft.
Agajanian…Brooker…Stenerud…Lowery.
Lin Elliott…Justin Medlock…Novak/Barth.
HELP!
Does it really matter who the kicker is? It’s obvious the chiefs have much bigger problems (Qb’s., ol., lbs. coaching)
I’m tired of the Herm and Carl haters. Don’t be mad at them…be mad that Feely choked. He was clearly beat out by Barth and Novak. Jay left them with no other option. I guess there is a reason the Dolphins let him go.
Why did the chiefs bring Freely in?
Probably to give the media something to do.
Honestly neither Barth or Novak is the equal of Nick the Kick YET!! If given a chance they could turn into that kinda guy or at least a solid kicker.
We are spoiled. KC has the honor of having two of the best kickers to play the game. Each had to be developed.
Give it some time.
I can clearly understand Herm’s rationale for having Feely add to the competition which wasn’t done last year with Medlock and it cost him.
No one has addressed another key element in evaluating kickers and that is, the choke factor. Can the guy perform under extreme pressure or will he fold?
That said, I don’t know if you can replicate a Scott Norwood moment but it would certainly help in narrowing down the guy who can get it done and the one(s) that cannot.
Blake…part of the reason miami let him go is because he kicks like a girl(kickoffs) : ) but mostly cuz they have a guy named Dan Carpenter out of the university of Montana, (my local FBS college team) Hasnt missed in pre-season. I watched him for 4 years, he is a stud, fearless and has a GIANT leg. Of course Carpenter went undrafted…just another good example of DIV 1AA/FBS talent slippin through the cracks.
hey, if he cant cut it, thats just how it is…I do however, have more confidence in Barth than Novak simply out of what Ive seen in college film/Novak film….
Who is the better of the 2 in kickoffs? I know Feely had to nail about 90 percent to stay since he allowed two KO return TD’s last season.