It’s unusual to see kickers picked early. Conventional wisdom is you can find decent enough kickers on the street. But the Bucs like Roberto Aguayo enough that they not only selected him in the second round but traded up to get him.
Aguayo converted 88 percent of his field goals at Florida State, which was the same school for only two receivers selected earlier in the last 20 years – Sebastian Janikowski back in 2000.
Since 1990, 15 other kickers have been selected in the first four rounds. In my eyes, five of those guys turned out to be really good picks. That is, the team would select the same guy again in a heartbeat. Jason Hanson, Jason Elam, John Kasay, Stephen Gostkowski and Nate Kaeding. (Kaeding had a couple of really painful misses in postseason games, but he was really good in the regular season for a lot of years).
Of these 15, eight of them are guys where the team definitely would want out if given a mulligan. Mike Nugent has been an OK kicker, for example, but not for the team that selected him.
I didn’t put grades on two of the 15. Janikowski and Martin Gramatica. With those guys, they had some success, but I’m not sure if the team would pick them again. Gramatica fizzled out after a few years. Janikowski has been around for a lot of years, but he hasn’t been as good as they were hoping. A couple of really good players were selected after Janikowski that year – Shaun Alexander and Keith Bulluck – but many of the first-rounders chosen after him also busted completely.
| KICKERS TAKEN IN FIRST FOUR ROUNDS (since 1990) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Rd | Pick | Player | School |
| 2000 | 1 | 17 | Sebastian Janikowski, Oak. | Florida State |
| 2005 | 2 | 47 | • Mike Nugent, Jets | Ohio State |
| 1992 | 2 | 56 | Jason Hanson, Det. | Washington State |
| 2015 | 2 | 59 | Roberto Aguayo, T.B. | Florida State |
| 2004 | 3 | 65 | Nate Kaeding, S.D. | Iowa |
| 1993 | 3 | 70 | Jason Elam, Den. | Hawaii |
| 1999 | 3 | 80 | Martin Gramatica, T.B. | Kansas State |
| 1995 | 3 | 82 | • Steve McLaughlin, St.L. | Arizona |
| 1994 | 3 | 85 | • Doug Brien, S.F. | California |
| 1997 | 3 | 90 | • Brett Conway, G.B. | Penn State |
| 2001 | 4 | 98 | • Bill Gramatica, Ariz. | South Florida |
| 1991 | 4 | 98 | John Kasay, Sea. | Georgia |
| 2002 | 4 | 102 | • Jeff Chandler, S.F. | Florida |
| 2002 | 4 | 109 | • Travis Dorsch, Cin. | Purdue |
| 2006 | 4 | 118 | Stephen Gostkowski, N.E. | Memphis |
| 2011 | 4 | 120 | • Alex Henery, Phil. | Nebraska |
—Ian Allan