Pete Carroll: Jason Myers will remain Seahawks’ kicker, gets teammates’ support
Jason Myers dropped his head. He reached between his face-mask bars and rubbed his eyes.
Seahawks fans cried from theirs.
The Seahawks’ kicker they gave $5.5 million guaranteed to in January wasn’t worth 5.5 dollars to them Sunday. Not when it counted most.
The 2018 Pro Bowl kicker for the New York Jets after Seattle released him and kept Sebastian Janikowski for last season missed a 47-yard field goal in the first half Sunday. Then he missed an extra point, off the upright. That kept the Seahawks behind 21-13 into the third quarter.
Then, after Russell Wilson’s 21-yard scramble and DK Metcalf’s catches and runs rallied the Seahawks’ offense frantically from their own 25-yard line to the Tampa Bay 22 in 43 seconds at the end of regulation, Myers had a chance to redeem himself. A chace to win the game with a 40-yard field goal. It’s standard distance with a relatively low level of difficulty for an NFL kicker, especially one with Myers’ contract and Pro Bowl history.
But the kick drifted wide to the right.
The stunned Seahawks went to overtime. In it, they beat the Buccaneers despite Myers and their defense, 40-34 on a Russell Wilson’s touchdown throw to Jacob Hollister on the first drive of the extra period.
“Our guys won for him,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “They all said that in the locker room.”
Myers was gone from it soon after the media was allowed in following the game.
As the Seahawks drove deep into Tampa Bay territory on the overtime drive, it wasn’t a stretch to wonder if Carroll considered all of it four-down territory. That he would go for the touchdown and the win there regardless, to keep Myers from trying another field goal. Even if Myers made one, it would give the Buccaneers’ offense a chance to answer in OT, anyway.
Myers is 2 for 5 this season on field goals from 40 or more yards. He is 1 for 3 from 50 yards or more.
Yes, when the Seahawks (7-2 often despite themselves) decide to kick from the 22-yard line on out, Myers is just 3 for 8 this season.
That will doom a playoff-contending team, sooner if not later.
Yet Carroll says he is not making changes at kicker. With the money they’ve guaranteed him, maybe they can’t afford to.
But they can’t afford these misses, either.
“Our kicker, Jason Myers, he’s our kicker,” Carroll said. “It didn’t go right today for him, but it’s going to.
“So we are counting on him to come back next week (at unbeaten San Francisco) and kick the winners and do all the things we need to do.
“He’s a magnificent talent. And today it got hard and didn’t work out right. But, we won, anyway.”
The coach thinks Myers’ teammates supporting him in the locker room will go a long way to restoring Myers’ confidence and the team’s faith in him.
“They all said that in the locker room; they cared about him. They got his back,” Carroll said. “And it couldn’t have been more clear about guys coming together for one of their own.”
Of course, it’s a ton easier to come together like that following a win.
This story was originally published November 3, 2019 at 7:29 PM.
