The way the Tampa Bay Buccaneers reacted to a 41-yard missed field goal by rookie kicker Roberto Aguayo was telling.

Many Buccaneers went over to him, patted him on the back or the helmet as soon as he got to the sideline. It was like a coordinated team effort to make sure his spirits didn’t get down. You don’t see professionals treated with kid gloves too often, especially when he’s costing you points. But his psyche seems fragile right now, and it won’t get better after a couple misses Sunday.

Roberto Aguayo is off to a slow start in his NFL career (AP) More

Aguayo is off to a really rough start, and it wouldn’t be that big of a story if not for the Buccaneers using a second-round pick to take him in this year’s NFL draft. That pick was questionable at best; and made worse because the Buccaneers traded up to take him. If you take a kicker in the second round he better not miss too often, even as a rookie.

But Aguayo seemed to get the yips in the preseason. He missed some kicks in games, then reports said he was missing in practice too. He saw a “mental coach” to help him. This was all before he played a regular-season game.

Aguayo had a quiet regular-season debut, making his only field-goal attempt, but then missed his only field-goal attempt last week. Then he missed an extra point on Sunday. Then he missed a field goal, his first attempt in Sunday’s game. The Los Angeles Rams took the ball after that and scored to take a 24-20 lead.

You can’t have a 33 percent field-goal success rate from any kicker, and when he’s a second-round pick it’s really bad.

Aguayo was a star kicker at Florida State, and he has a lot of time to turn things around in the NFL. But a bad preseason has now become a slow start to the regular season, and there’s plenty of reason to be concerned if you’re a Buccaneers fan.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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