The Tampa Bay Buccaneers Drafted a Kicker … Again

It's deja vu all over again.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected a kicker in the NFL draft—yes, you read that right—again.

The Buccaneers used the No. 145 pick in this year's draft to select Matt Gay out of Utah in the fifth round. The 6-foot, 230-pounder joined the Utes program in 2017 after playing soccer at UVU for two years. During his Utah career, Gay hit 86.15 percent of his field-goal attempts and made a school-record eight from 50-plus yards.

Gay was considered the top kicker in this year's draft class. So was Roberto Aguayo when Tampa Bay drafted him in 2016, but that didn't turn out so pretty. However, Bucs general manger Jason Licht defended his decision to select a kicker once again.

"Kicker's a very important position. It's one of the most important positions on the team. Right now, we have a coach that really believes in kickers and the importance of it, [he] stresses it," Licht said. "When Bruce was hired, we had several discussions about what we were going to do to refine the ways that we do things in terms of finding a good kicker."

The Buccaneers became the laughingstock of the NFL draft when they traded a third-round pick (No. 74) and a fourth-round pick (No. 106) to Kansas City to move up to the 59th spot and grab Aguayo.

He ended up finishing his only season in the NFL last in field-goal percentage, hitting only 71 percent of his kicks and going 4-of-11 on kicks of 40 yards or longer. He was officially labeled a bust after the Buccaneers cut ties with him after that season.

For Tampa Bay's sake, let's hope Gay has better luck in 2019.