Pete Carroll saved the Seahawks season by trusting Jason Myers

The Seahawks seemed oh so close to another debacle at kicker. Pete Carroll took the long view with Jason Myers and may have saved the season.

It was just two years ago that the Seahawks missed the playoffs, in large part due to the inability of their kicker to come through in clutch situations. That was the unfortunate Blair Walsh experiment, one which all 12s would sooner forget. Following that nightmare, Seattle moved on to Sebastian Janikowski in 2018. Seabass was better, but still wasn’t quite as good as a playoff team needs. Pro Bowler Jason Myers seemed to be the answer, but even he ran into some issues. Happily, Pete Carroll gave him exactly what he needed to succeed: confidence.

Let’s take a brief tour of Walsh’s tour with Seattle. Many people forget that he actually started out quite well. Through the first seven games of the season, Walsh made 12 of 13 field goal attempts, a 92 percent success rate. The wheels came off in week eight, though. He missed all three of his kicks in a 17-14 loss to Washington. Walsh missed from 44, 39, and 49 yards, none of which are particularly difficult for an NFL kicker.

He bounced back the following week, making both of his field goal attempts versus the Cardinals. Unfortunately he missed four of his remaining 11 attempts on the season. Including his game versus Arizona, Walsh hit just nine of his last 16 field goals for an atrocious 56 percent. It was clear that he had to go.

Enter the Seabass. Actually, enter Janikowski and Myers, as they battled in camp for the spot with the Seahawks. Entering the 2018 season, Myers had made 81 percent of his career field goal attempts, including just 73 percent in 2017. Janikowski had a career rate of 80.1 percent, but made 82.9 percent of his kicks in his final season in Oakland. The ancient one also nailed 98.9 percent of his extra points. Myers had a much lower career percentage of 86.4 percent. Look at this way. In three seasons with the Jaguars, Myers missed 12 extra points. In 10,000 years with the Raiders, Janikowski missed exactly half that many. Okay, it was 17 years, but he still just missed six times. You can see why the old guy won the competition going into 2018.