Sebastian Janikowski’s lethal left leg will cure Seahawks kicking game

Did I mention he was a kicking god?

You could also say that was the last time he would miss a field goal. After the Denver game, Janikowski went on a tear and made all 16 of his field goal attempts. He scored nine points each in close wins over Houston and Carolina. He scored 13 in a 19-16 win over San Diego. Somehow, he missed his only two extra points of the year in the penultimate game of 2016, a 33-25 win over Indianapolis.

So in 2016 he provided the margin of victory in no less than seven games. His misses cost the Raiders exactly zero losses, although he was bailed out in the Tampa Bay game. That’s a performance the Seahawks would have loved to get from their kicker last year.

Did I mention Seabass has made 80 percent of his field goals for his career? Did I also mention that he was actually better than his career average over his last three seasons? Oh, and his career percentage for extra points is 98.9. He’s never missed more than two extra points in a season, and has twelve seasons with zero missed extra points.

I think that qualifies as a kicking god. Although I recall one of the Hulk’s best lines ever: “Puny god”. Janikowski is 40 years old, and he missed an entire season. He may not kick like he has for sixteen seasons in the NFL, but there are a lot more reasons to think he will, than he won’t. The only surprising thing about the Seahawks signing him to me was the money. When musing on free agent kickers earlier this year, I ruled Janikowski out, as I expected him to be too expensive for Seattle. There’s no word on his contract yet, but it’s certain to be significantly less than the $3.7 million average he was getting in Oakland.

Either that, or the Seahawks decided that experiments in kicking just aren’t that fun after all.