Succop Misses Three Times in 'Tough' Season Debut

Titans kicker has the worst day of his NFL career in loss at Carolina

Jim Brown/USA Today Sports

No one associated with the Tennessee Titans could wait until the day Ryan Succop was able to play again. Perhaps they should have.

Sunday was that day and the veteran kicker had a dubious 2019 debut, to say the least. He was 0-for-3 on field goal attempts in a 30-20 loss to the Carolina Panthers with misses from 43, 44 and 56 yards. The longest kick, as the first half expired, was straight but fell short. The 43-yard try missed to the left and the one from 44 yards hit the right upright.

It was the first time in his career he attempted at least three in a game but did not make any and a career-high for misses in a single contest. In fact, only twice in 160 career games had he missed two field goal attempts.

“I’m not going to make any excuses or anything like that,” Succop said. “I’ll look at it and figure out how to get better from this. And that’s what we’ll do.”

Combined, Titans kickers have made seven of 15 field goal attempts (46.7 percent) this season. The eight misses are most of any NFL team (San Francisco is second with seven) and twice as many as all of last season. That number also ties the franchise high for misses in a season during the Titans era (1999-present) set in 2001 when Joe Nedney went 20-for-28 and equaled in 2004 when Gary Anderson, Aaron Elling and punter Craig Hentrich were a combined 19-for-27.

The Titans placed Succop on injured reserve (return eligible) days before the season-opener when it was determined that he needed additional time to recover from offseason knee surgery. The first game he was eligible to play was against the Panthers, and he was added to the active roster Saturday after two weeks of practice with the team.

“This week of practice, in particular, I was starting to hit the ball really well,” he said. “It’s frustrating when I didn’t do it (Sunday). That was tough.”

Cairo Santos filled in for Succop through the first five weeks. He was cut, however, a day after he went 0-for-4 on field goal attempts in a 14-7 loss to the Buffalo Bills. Cody Parkey replaced Santos and was 3-for-3 in three games. Parkey was released Saturday when Succop was removed from IR.

The last time the franchise had three different placekickers in one season was 1977.

Another performance like Sunday and the search might be on for a fourth.

“Obviously, I just didn’t get it done (Sunday),” Succop said. “That’s tough. That’s on me.

“I’ll look at the tape and kind of see where we go. I’ll certainly look at everything and try to figure out what happened.”