I was able to catch up with Ryan Day who was nice enough to answer a few questions about the Saints new free agent veteran kicker Josh Scobee. Scobee, you’ll perhaps know, attended Louisiana Tech in college and played most of his NFL career with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Ryan is a blogger for Big Cat Country on the SB Nation Network, so he’s as in touch with the Jags as anyone. Make sure you check those guys out on twitter. Here’s our Q&A:
Andrew from Saints Nation: The Saints kind of had mixed results with Kai Forbath last year. He doesn’t have the strongest leg on kickoffs and his rep coming in was that he didn’t have a huge leg but was accurate from close. Except he missed some easy kicks and nailed a 50 yard game winner against the Giants and a 57 yarder in another game. So basically he did the exact opposite of his reputation. Forbath is back and his competition is Scobee for the kicking job. At least for now. Your thoughts on who wins?
Ryan from Big Cat Country: I think Forbath wins. He’s younger and from what I know about him (which isn’t very much) he doesn’t have the history of injuries that Scobee does recently. It’ll be a tight race, and as a Jaguars fan I hope Scobee wins it, but the upside of a guy who is five years younger might be too good to pass up.
Scobee was awesome for a really long time with the Jags. Curious if fans in Jacksonville hold him in high esteem or if things ended badly?
Things didn’t end badly at all. There were rumblings throughout last year’s preseason and when rookie Jason Myers was nailing kicks in practice and in games, you could tell that general manager Dave Caldwell might want to roll the dice and trade Scobee to a kicker-needy team for a draft pick. After all, Scobee is in the twilight of his career and if you’re going to try and get something for him, last year was the year to do it. Scobee has come back to Jacksonville and done radio shows and live appearances, so I don’t think he holds any grudges either.
Scobee was injured last year with a hip flexor that never really recovered. That explains why he was so bad last season. He claims he’s 100% now. If that’s true, what can the Saints expect from him?
If Scobee is 100% like he says, expect a strong leg and accurate kicks from 40 or 50 yards out. He’s declined (as any player who had been in the league for over a decade would) but if he’s truly rehabbed that hip flexor, I’d expect you to be more confident in his long game.
Sean Payton has always had a very quick trigger with kickers. He has no patience with them and sometimes it’s almost unfair. He can handle a miss here or there, but if you’re in a funk/bad spell, he doesn’t hesitate to make a change. It seems like throughout Scobee’s career he’s had hot and cold streaks. Based on the stats I’m worried a slow start could doom him.
A slow start could very well doom Scobee like it did in Pittsburgh last year. But Scobee’s only real cold streaks were because of injury. He’s been consistently a very good kicker for a very long time. If he’s over his injury, I wouldn’t expect any cold streaks next year.
Any other thoughts or things we should know about Scobee?
He’s a hell of a golfer.
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