The New Orleans Saints have a kicking problem.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it.
Garrett Hartley’s job is officially on the line.
Miss a couple of kicks in a win against the Minnesota Vikings and you get a pat on the back and words of encouragement from teammates and coaches.
Miss a 29-yard game-winner in overtime against your division rivals at home, and well, you’re not being patted on the shoulder, you’re looking over it.
Seven months ago, Hartley was a hero, carried out of the Superdome on the shoulders of teammates after kicking the Saints to their first Super Bowl.
Today, he wears the horns after his inexplicable miss sank the Saints in their numbing 27-24 loss to Atlanta.
If this were an isolated incident the Saints could live with it. But this is now Hartley’s third miss in three games.
Saints Coach Sean Payton stood behind his young kicker three weeks ago after those misses against the Vikings.
He was less supportive Sunday.
“We’re not going to talk about personnel right now,” Payton said curtly afterward. “I think it’s a fair question. But, listen, last week he played well. He pulled this kick, and certainly he’s got to play better than that. There’s a lot of us that have to do a better job, myself included.”
A few hours later, though, the Saints were on the phone with veteran kicker John Carney. He’ll be in for a workout this week.
He, of course, was the relief kicker when Hartley was suspended last season. He’s both a mentor and a friend to Hartley. His signing would be less intimidating for Hartley and allow him to work out his issues with confidence while trying to get his groove back.
And Hartley, more than anyone, knows he needs to find it and quick.
To his credit, Hartley was a stand-up guy afterward. He planted himself in front of his locker, looked every reporter in the eye and answered every last question from the hovering media horde.
You had to strain to hear his hushed answers but he didn’t duck a one.
That’s more than I can say for some veteran kickers I’ve known over the years.
“It was all me,” Hartley said. “Everything else was great, perfect. That’s my job. When we get the ball down to the 11-yard line, we need to walk out of here with the ‘W,’ and tonight I did not fulfill that role as part of this team.”
Hartley’s funk has created a difficult decision for Payton and General Manager Mickey Loomis.
Hartley clearly has talent. He’s proven he can battle back from adversity.
He missed a potential game-winner from an almost identical position against Tampa Bay last season, then recovered to go 5-for-5 in the postseason. He won the NFC title game with a 40-yarder and set a Super Bowl record by drilling three 40-plus-yarders against the Colts.
Moreover, he’s only 24 years old. Who’s to say he’s not the next Morten Andersen or Jason Elam?
Then again, he could be the next Shaun Suisham.
The troubling thing about Hartley’s misses is they have occurred in the exact same fashion. Pulls to the left.
And his game-winner a week ago at San Francisco looked to be headed in the same direction before being steered true by the pinkie on San Francisco’s Ray McDonald’s left hand.
“It’s something I have to strive to get back to being able to do on a regular basis and not this up-and-down roller coaster that I’ve started off this first three weeks with, ” Hartley said. “They expect me to go out there and do my job, and tonight, on the second kick, I didn’t. Bottom line. And that can’t happen.”
Hartley’s teammates said all the right things in the somber post-game locker room.
Fullback Heath Evans told Hartley to remember last season and how he bounced back from the miss against the Bucs to become a postseason hero.
“I don’t expect anything different from him, ” Evans said.
Quarterback Drew Brees echoed Evans’ sentiments.
“He’s made a lot of big kicks for us, ” Brees said. “And unfortunately he misses the one today that he would make 99 out of 100 times, and this is the one out of a hundred. ” I’m confident that he’ll bounce back because he has in the past. That’s what I’m hoping.”
The Saints have to do more than hope, though.
They have to act. And it appears they wisely aren’t going to wait to see if Hartley can correct matters on his own.
Fortunately, they enter the user-friendly portion of their schedule. Their next four games are against the lowly Panthers, Cardinals, Buccaneers and Browns.
They likely won’t need Hartley or any other kicker’s last-minute heroics to cream those puffs.
But that doesn’t mean Sunday’s setback won’t sting for awhile.
This was a big loss. The Saints were a chip shot away from putting the Falcons in an early two-game hole in the NFC South race.
Now they find themselves locked in a three-way tie with the Falcons and Bucs with a Monday night trip to Atlanta looming in late December.
You get the feeling this loss is going to come back to haunt the Saints when playoff seeds are determined in January.
That’s why Hartley’s hook was so devastating.
As he left the locker room Sunday afternoon, Hartley stopped in his tracks and retrieved a baseball cap from his locker. He pulled it tightly down over his spiked blonde locks as he made his way past his teammates.
The hat was black.
(TP)
