The Saints have signed veteran kicker John Kasay, 41 years old, to fill in while Garrett Hartley recovers from his injury. Kasay was the kicker for the entirety of the Panthers’ existence from 1995 till last year and he’s combined leg strength with great accuracy during his career, making the Pro Bowl once in 1996. The roster now stands at 80 with this signing which was confirmed by the Saints’ official twitter account.
Before you get too alarmed, this signing doesn’t necessarily mean much. Regardless of whether Hartley is seriously hurt, or minorly hurt, the Saints needed two kickers during preseason with an 80 man roster. We’ll see how long it takes Hartley to recover from his hip tweak. Still, it’s a little unnerving that Hartley is on the sideline once again. Anyway, Kasay, while old, brings a hopefully temporary stabilizing force to the kicking position and he’ll be a good influence on Hartley with his experience. If he’s needed in a game situation, I trust he can still make kicks inside 45 yards. At least I hope so. But more than anything, I’m hoping Hartley is fully recovered by week 1 of the regular season so the Saints can release Kasay.
My little story about Kasay:
his rookie season with the Seattle Seahawks, his first game of his career was in the Superdome against the Saints. This was in 1991, 20 years ago, and I attended the game and still remember it well. Kasay was a promising kicker with a huge leg drafted by the Seahawks that year in the 4th round. Morten Andersen was still the kicker for the Saints at the time…
The Saints led that game 20-7 at halftime and it included a Pat Swilling interception for a touchdown. They seemed to be winning easy when out of nowhere the Seahawks raced to a 24-20 lead. Bobby Hebert would connect with Floyd Turner on 4th and goal from the 10 to give the Saints a 27-24 lead late in the fourth quarter. The Seahawks would drive and put Kasay in position to tie the game as time expired, and he missed about a 45 yarder to send the game to overtime. The Saints won 27-24 and started the season 1-0. Kasay hung his head in shame and just kind of stood there. Morten Andersen went over to greet Kasay at midfield after the game to console him as a fellow kicker and encourage him that that’s just the life of an NFL kicker. Well, 20 years later, Kasay is now kicking for the Saints. How strange is that? And yes, that means this guy is OLD for an NFL player!
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