Keenan Allen doesn’t think Carli Lloyd will cut it as an NFL kicker

[Bolt]

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At a time when U.S. soccer star Carli Lloyd could be moving toward becoming an NFL kicker, she will inevitably meet some resistance.

One current NFL player has provided a bit of it with his views on the possibility of a female on the football field.

“Sound sweet til somebody block the kick and all of a sudden she on defense,” Chargers receiver Keenan Allen said on Twitter. “Would be like the stampede scene in the lion king movie.”

As if it’s not that way with non-female kickers. Plenty of current and historical NFL kickers lack the traditional stature, physique, athletic skills, and or/toughness possessed by “normal” football players. Surely, a soccer player (who has to have the ability to throw the ball from the sideline) would fare better than, say, Garo Yepremian in Super Bowl VII. Also, was anyone freaked out about players like Rich Karlis were running around with a completely bare lower leg and foot?

Then there’s Bill Gramatica, who was sufficiently awkward and ungainly to tear an ACL while leaping to celebrate after making a field goal.

Lloyd’s experience in soccer means that she knows a thing or two about making contact, absorbing contact, and otherwise moving in an agile, elusive way to avoid contact. She frankly could be considerably more athletic than more than a few of the kickers currently in the NFL.

But at least Allen offered some praise for Lloyd. “She do got a boot tho!” Allen said.

Yes she does, and that’s the primary skills that teams are looking for when it comes to kickers. For most kickers, a blocked kick would result in a stampede, with the kicker’s primary goal becoming finding a way to get out of the way.