Roberto Aguayo, a kicker taken in the second round by the Bucs was released over the weekend. He may go on to find success elsewhere, he may not.* But, whatever happens, he’s not the only R. Aguayo that this turn of events will affect.

* EDIT: Since I started writing this, he’s been claimed by the Bears. More on that below.

Ricky Aguayo, Roberto’s little bro.

Peyton and Eli. Tiki and Ronde. Josh and Luke McCown. Heck, even the Gronks.

When you consider the fact that one million(ish) high school football players are competing for ~250 draft spots every year, the number of siblings who end up playing in the League together is pretty astonishing.

The NFL isn’t exactly an old boys’ club in the same way that Ivy League colleges are but a LOT of players have a relatively, whether that be a father/uncle/brother/cousin, in the League. Is this really as simple as teams trying to capture some of the magic associated with a big name relative?

The fact of the matter is, in many cases, it works. Maybe it’s something in the water, maybe it’s going to a local high school — since most brothers don’t end up at the same colleges — that understands the system or maybe it’s all those hours Pop spent throwing the pigskin with his boys. It’s hard to say.

But things don’t always work out. For every Eli and Peyton, there’s a Rob and…well, take your pick from the list of Gronkowski brothers that didn’t quite measure up. For every Ryan Kalil, there’s a Matt. (Sorry, that’s just the bitter Vikings fan in me coming out.)

I’m writing this during the 2017 preseason so the T.J Watt hype train is already rolling, but we’ll have to wait and see how that one plays out.

By the Numbers

Anyway, let’s get back to the Aguayos.

When you look at Roberto’s college stats you can almost see what the Bucs were thinking when they spent a second rounder on him chasing another Janikowski. Almost.

Roberto (College)

It’s worth pointing out here that Aguayo had already deteriorated significantly by the time he left FSU, missing more and more long kicks. By 2015, his FGM % of kicks longer than 40 yards had dropped to 50%.

Ricky (College)

Ricky’s stats are a little worse but one interesting quirk here is that if you only look at kicks shorter than 40 yards, Aguayo II’s FGM rises to 100%. Looking at Roberto’s pro stats (below) this seems to be exactly the type of kick that he’s struggled with in the NFL.

Roberto (NFL)

But the strange thing about this is that he was 8–9 and 1–1 on kicks 40–49 and 50+ in his first year at FSU. Leaving every Bucs fan asking “what the hell happened?” I wish I had an answer to that question.

I actually spoke to a few folks in Tallahassee last year, and heard the same phrase being used again and again: “Ricky is even better than Roberto.” When I was there it was halfway through the season but, even so, that’s not what the numbers say.

Technically speaking…

When you factor in the added pressure and XP distance of the NFL, Roberto currently appears to be playing at a higher level than Ricky. That’s true even though he was, statistically, the weakest kicker in the NFL last year.

And what might concern NFL teams even more is the fact that Aguayo Jr’s kicking technique looks an awful lot like that of his brother. Not surprising, since the brothers both played soccer before making the move to football. I’m not, however, going to get into the mechanics of Roberto (or Ricky) Aguayo’s kicking because Chuck Zodda has already done a fantastic job of that over at Inside The Pylon.

Look at college stats for kicking stalwarts like Gostkowski and Justin Tucker, and you’ll notice a similar trend: poor (comparatively speaking) performance in their first year on a roster, with steady improvements each year. Janikowski is one notable eception to this, with a FG% of around 76% in his first and third years sandwiching 84% in the second. It’ll be interesting to see if Ricky’s FG%, as history suggests will, improves to the high 70s this year.

Maybe that was part of the problem for Aguayo; his outstanding performance in his first year gave him nowhere to go but down. As we’ve seen above, that’s not a problem he has in common with Ricky. With a ranking of the 63rd NCAA kicker in 2016 there’s no guarantee that Ricky, when the time comes, will even declare for the draft at all.

Not Without Precendence

The story of two brothers with South American heritage both making it to the NFL might sound like a fairytale, but it’s one that’s already happened with the Gramatica brothers.

Martin Gramatica, the elder, ended his career with a Super Bowl ring, two All-Pro selections and an appearance in the Pro Bowl.

His FG% during both his college days and in the NFL was around 76%.

The story of Bill Gramatica, the younger, is a little sadder. His promising career was paused when he tore his ACL celebrating a kick, he was released during preseason after signing with the Giants and was later cut from the NFL for good after missing an extra point for the Dolphins in a 1 point loss.

His FG% in college was around 66%, but his NFL performance? 77%.

Yes, the sample size is vastly different. No, you can’t compare these two cases like they’re exactly the same. Still, it’s interesting to think about what might have been had Bill not suffered that injury. That’s all.

Aguayo → Bears

I’m a little surprised that the Bears were the team to pick up Aguayo on waivers; Connor Barth is far from a franchise kicker a la Gostkowski or Justin Tucker, but he was in the middle of the pack last year when it comes to kickers.

There are other placekickers out there, like Forbath for the Vikings, for example, who seem much more like stopgap solutions than Barth. That said, Cobra Kai has performed well for the Vikings thus far and they may want to avoid kicker controversy like the plague after the Blair Walsh Project.

In a couple of years, the sight of the name R. Aguayo in the upcoming draft class is likely to give the Bucs’ front office some awful flashbacks. But will other teams consider Roberto to be a cautionary tale in the same way? Right now, that’s impossible to predict. To some extent, it depends on whether he can get his head straight in Chicago. Regardless, it’s unlike that ANY team will use a second round pick on a kicker for a long time. No matter how “automatic” they might be.

As if Roberto didn’t have enough pressure trying to make it in the Windy City, the fact that every kick he makes or misses this season may have significant impact on his brother’s future — or lack thereof — in the NFL is just another cross for him to (no pun intended) bear.