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The Detroit Lions truly had one of the all-time great players at the kicking position after they selected Jason Hanson in the second round (56th overall) of the 1993 NFL Draft. But as Detroit's special teams' coordinator Dave Fipp recently explained, the process that goes into taking a kicker isn't the easiest.
Detroit Lions ST Coach Dave Fipp explains process of selecting a kicker
Lions fans look back fondly on Hanson, who would go on to play 327 games in the Honolulu Blue while also setting the record for most years with the same franchise (21 seasons). To this day, he holds team records for kicking and scoring, while also holding the designation as the team scoring leader with a total of 2,150 points, and in total field goals with 495.
The next time the Lions took a kicker in the 2014 NFL Draft, things didn't exactly work out according to plan with Nate Freese, who would be released by the team later that September. So, what exactly goes into taking a player at the often overlooked but nevertheless valuable position?
“I do think in order to draft a kicker that you got to feel like, ‘Hey, man, this guy’s going to be a good player for us,’” Fipp explained. “And I think it’s probably fairly well documented that in the past there have been — (Sebastian) Janikowski, maybe he worked out (as a first-round pick), but in the past there have been some mistakes where they’ve taken some guys earlier in the draft and those guys didn’t work out.”
“And I do think that the kicker position’s much like a lot of them where it’s hit and miss. You don’t know exactly which one’s going to be a guy who ends up playing great in this league and having a great career in this league, so it’s not always the guy you thought was the best going into the draft or coming out of the draft that year.”
The Lions will have options when it comes to bringing in a new kicker
“That position’s like a lot of positions in this game,” Fipp said. “The bottom line is there’s a bunch of different ways to get it through the uprights and as long as you have yours and your consistent at it and really good, then it all works out.”
Whether the Lions choose to select a kicker in the draft or go the free agency route, you can bet that they aren't taking the position lightly.
