Update [2006-11-28 13:17:44 by Skin Patrol]: Ben's take on it.
Update [2006-11-28 13:8:24 by Skin Patrol]: Former Cowboy's Kicker Shaun Suisham is at Redskins park for a meet and greet, per Redskins Insider. Another team's garbage is probably our garbage and then some, as far as I'm concerned. But give the kid a tryout, why not. Update [2006-11-28 13:53:11 by Skin Patrol]: And so much for that.
So the Cowboys finally cut Mike Vanderjagt. Martin Gramatica has replaced him. Money quote from the article:
The Cowboys have suffered considerable kicking woes; Billy Cundiff and Jose Cortez were not reliable options as kickers last year.
"Automatica" has been anything but this year, 13 of 18 or a career low 73%. He's still the most accurate kicker in the league. That said, he's also an arrogant loud mouth, potentially drunk, prima donna.
While I don't fault him for the drunk part -- kidding, but not really -- I could do without a struggling kicker who won't do kickoffs. We already have a struggling kicker, but ours is sober and won't cost us a roster spot because we will have to pickup someone else to kickoff. We might have to do that anyways, since Nick Novak can't seem to do that well, either.
The Redskins are trying out kickers; the above mentioned Jose Cortez, Tyler Jones, and Todd Peterson.
My official position is that I don't want Vanderjagt. I could mostly get past the arrogance, but the kickoff thing and his struggles recently are the deal breaker. Also he'd cost a fortune more than we need to spend (he was guaranteed 2.5 mil by the Cowboys, most of which will have to be paid in dead cap space next year). I don't know if Cortez, Jones (who was cut by us earlier) and Peterson are the answer, but at least they'd be cheap.
Maybe I've got this wrong. Does anyone want him?