Kickers have such a rough life in some ways. Kicking seems like a very streaky job. The differences between the best kickers and the worst are minimal and hard to see, and Scobee has made plenty of good clutch kicks in his career. Lots of misses go unnoticed due to the team scoring plenty of points anyway or losing by tons to begin with. Then every once in a while, you get a game where the field goals are the difference makers, and if you happen to have a bad day on that moment, you’re the villain for the week and everyone hates you.

in 2006 Jay Feely missed 3 straight field goals for the Giants and allowed the Seahawks to force overtime and win. John Carney shanked the extra point after the incredible lateral play by the Saints. If Scobee had made a kick in overtime, everyone would be fine and happy because he “redeemed” himself, the way Lawrence Tynes did in the 2007 championship game.

It’s one of those jobs that gets you very little recognition unless you win an important game or lose a game directly because you missed. “YOU HAD ONE JOB” people yell, ignoring the fact that kicking field goals is goddamn hard as hell (plus still dependent on good snaps, good blocking, and good holds) and very few people in the world can do it well enough at that level. So I feel pretty bad for Scobee. He could make every single kick from here out and unless some of those were important game winners, nobody would even notice. Hell, as a kicker you can even have a bad year and come back fine after that. Remember in 2012 when Mason Crosby was having a terrible season and Packer fans were calling for his head? Yeah his next season was one of his best. Kickers get a lot of hate for games that they directly lose but it’s disproportionate. The rest of the team put the kicker in that position to face that pressure, it’s unfair to lump it all on him, even if he does deserve a large portion of the blame.