In early December, Shayne Graham was jobless, sitting at home in Houston, waiting for the phone to ring. Thirty days later, he is being hailed as a hero by New Orleans Saints fans.
Such is the life of an on-again, off-again kicker in the NFL.
It was on the last play of the day in front of a hostile Philadelphia crowd that the kicker, 36, booted the 32-yard field goal that gave the New Orleans Saints their first road play-off victory in club history.
After the Saints’ 26-24 win, Graham was viewed as the saviour of a season – just a month after he was reclining reluctantly on his couch.
In this super-macho, testosterone-driven league, the outcome of games often pivots on a comparatively scrawny fellow who, in a close game, usually sits at the end of the bench and is not spoken to by other players, who are adhering to an old superstition that it is bad luck to speak to kickers.
Kickers often are discarded after a bad day, but their value cannot be understated, especially at this time of year. Of the four play-off games contested this past weekend, three were decided by a kicker.
Phil Dawson booted a 33-yard field goal as time expired to lift the San Francisco 49ers to a 23-20 victory in Green Bay. In Indianapolis, Andrew Luck threw four second-half touchdown passes, but it was Adam Vinatieri’s sixth extra point that sealed the Colts’ 45-44 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.
Then came Graham, who was the difference between victory and defeat for the Saints.
Kickers spend most of the game on the sidelines. The few times they enter the field, they must complete the delicate and split-second manoeuvre of a place kick while half a dozen huge men charge at them. This happens in a sport where kickers are converting chances at an ever-higher rate, leaving no room for error or excuses.
Even then, kickers are rarely celebrated. Praise one week can the next week turn into the not-so-silent condemnation of coaches and teammates from a missed kick.
“I try to stay out of the limelight,” said Graham, who has kicked in NFL games for 10 teams and trained with five more, meaning he has had affiliations with nearly half the teams in the league.
This was Graham’s sixth play-off game and he has converted more than 250 field goals in his career but, until last weekend, he had never kicked a walk-off field goal to win a play-off game.
He may get a chance to do it again at Seattle this weekend. But if the opportunity comes and he misses with the game on the line, a grim reality of this league is that he almost certainly will not be a New Orleans Saint next season.
agray@thenational.ae
