Michael Koenen kept his head up and tried to focus. He heard the boos, but while trotting onto the field he was determined to make his fourth field goal attempt on Sunday. "They were booing, but I still have to do my job," Koenen said. That last one, a 40-yarder, sailed wide left for his fourth miss of the day in the Falcons' 14-3 victory over Tampa Bay in the home opener at the Georgia Dome. "All of the kicks felt good," Koenen said. "It wasn't like I was hitting the ball bad or anything like that."
With misses of 30, 36 and a blocked attempt from 30 yards, Koenen's day as the Falcons' triple-threat field goal kicker, punter and kickoff specialist might be numbered. His kickoffs were fine. He averaged 42.5 yards on two punts. But a team trying to rebound from an 8-8 season and return to Super Bowl contender status is going to need some field goals along the way. In the season opener at Carolina, Koenen made two of four field goals.
"It's been an issue," special teams coach Joe DeCamillis said. "We were concerned about that situation coming in. Now we've got to look at it and see which way we are going to go." It was frustrating for the Falcons, who whipped Tampa Bay up and down the field but could not score any points to show for their domination. "It is an issue that we are not going to disregard," Falcons coach Jim Mora said. "But I feel very confident that we have the people in place to rectify that situation, between Joe, [assistant special teams coach] Steve Hoffman and Michael Koenen." Koenen, who was mainly the team's punter last season, won the field goal job by making 8-of-8 during the exhibition season. "What I'm hoping is that we don't judge it all on one game," DeCamillis said. "He's a young guy just like any other player. He had a bad game. Hopefully he can come back from that and rebound, but again that's going to a team decision that we're going to have to make."
Koenen didn't get much help from his snapper. Boone Stutz was erratic, missing his spot on at least two of the misses. "He had some low snaps on field goal placements, even on punts," DeCamillis said. "He's just a young kid that has to pick it up." Stutz accepted some of the blame for Koenen's woes. "I can hit my spots better," Stutz said. "I can make Mike not worry about it."
A downcast Koenen, who was forcing one of those beauty pageant smiles, was philosophical about his misses. "Everybody has a bad day," Koenen said. "If that's my worse day in my life, I've got it pretty good." Koenen's first miss was wide right. The second and fourth were wide left. He said he wasn't trying compensate after pushing the first one slightly to the right. (The third field goal was blocked.) "I just tried to go through my normal routine," Koenen said. "I didn't try to overcompensate. That's one of the things that could really mess you up."
Thanks, I had a long post ready to go filled with simple logic (ie Kicking inside is easier than kicking outside, which should be common sense, IMO), but you had to come here and ruin it with stats that prove the point at hand.
