E-Boland & Gang Green

By Tom Rock

I saw Giants kicker A.J. Feeley on Cold Pizza earlier this week – yes I do watch that show when I get the chance – and he was talking about how the K balls that kickers use in games are very inconsistent and can sometimes result in a variance of 10 yards on a kickoff. I thought that was a little odd, so I asked Mike Nugent about it. He confirmed that while the idea behind having those balls separate from the other game balls is to provide a uniform kick, they do vary wildly in terms of texture and air pressure. Nugent said he’ll sometimes feel like he makes the same exact kick twice, but one will go to the goal line and the other will be caught at the 10.

Nugent said the biggest difference he sees is that the footballs used for the opening kickoffs in each half seem to be a lot newer that the ones provided during the rest of the game. It probably has to do with sitting out in the cold during play as opposed to coming out of the locker room and being placed on a tee.

“If its been sitting out in the cold all day it’ll lose air,” Nugent said. “In Green Bay, I could feel how much flatter the ball was getting throughout the day because of the cold. But even on a regular day that can still happen, you can still get a different ball.”

So the idea of the K ball providing a standard for kickers is phooey. Myth busted!

In the ever-changing world of the press room, we decided not to present the Good Guy award today and will do it sometime next week. There was no real reason as to why this was done, other than later in the season seems to make more sense. Anyway, I bring this up because I mentioned it yesterday and didn’t want anyone to feel cheated. The winner will be announced here as soon as it is announced in the locker room.

Thanks, by the way, to everyone who posted, called or emailed regarding Doug Robins, my high school baseball coach who was mentioned here a few days ago. I'll be sure to pass those sentiments along next time I speak to him.