Captain Fear
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- Mar 20, 2019
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The Buccaneers’ search for a consistent kicker continued on Saturday when they drafted Matt Gay in the fifth round.
It was a move that left Gay “kind of shocked” because he wasn’t expecting to be drafted that early and it led many others to reminisce about Tampa trading up to draft Roberto Aguayo in the second round of the 2016 draft. Aguayo was cut after one poor season, but General Manager Jason Licht said that wasn’t going to stop him from going back to the well.
“You wouldn’t say the same thing for a receiver, if a receiver didn’t work out a couple years ago that you took in the second round, would you be afraid to take a receiver in the fifth round? No,” Licht said, via ESPN.com. “This is a very, very important position.”
No one would doubt that kicker’s an important position, although some may doubt that the Buccaneers have come up with an effective way of identifying good ones given the rate they run through them in Tampa. The team hired former NFL kicker Chris Boniol as a coach this offseason in another move they hope will help end that cycle and getting Gay up to speed will be his first order of business.