Giants at Washington: Coming Down To The Kickers?
LANDOVER, Md. - One placekicker returns to FedExField on Sunday struggling and trying to hang on to his job. Another returns to FedExField, a place he used to call home a long time ago, to face the organization that ran out of patience with him.
Dustin Hopkins currently applies his craft for the Washington Football Team. Graham Gano is the placekicker for the New York Giants. When the two teams meet today, it'll be about familiarity for this bunch.
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WFT coach Ron Rivera knows them both. Gano, he knows better and for longer, as the Panthers snapped up Gano late in 2012, Rivera's second-year as the head coach of the Panthers.
They went to a Super Bowl together and won divisional titles in part because of Rivera's leadership and Gano's leg.
Hopkins and Rivera are working together this year for the first time - and it hasn't gone especially well.
Hopkins is 8-12 on field goal attempts and 11-12 on extra point opportunities. That's five missed kicks in seven games on a team with very little margin for error.
His missed field goal against Dallas didn't cost Washington (which won), but his missed kick at New York on the game's opening drive contributed to a loss.
"I think the kicking situation is what it is," Rivera said (video above). Hop's done a great job for us. He's had a couple of struggles, obviously. We wish he could make them all, but we know he's not going to. There's going to be an opportunity for him to kick and win football games for us."
It will be interesting Sunday and moving forward in the short term to monitor Rivera's thought process. He's already aggressive on fourth down in unconventional spots. Does his kicker confidence waver and influence that aggressiveness?
Meanwhile, on Sunday, he'll be staring across the field at the kicker he once trusted to help him win, not beat him.
Gano kicked in 98 games for the Panthers and Rivera. He made 85+ % of his field goals and he recently went over one-thousand points.
Sunday, Gano will hope to kick his current team to a victory over his former team and the coach that gave him the opportunity by believing in him. ... and Washington will hope Hopkins gets things straight - and long.
