Who You Creepin'?

Monday, December 05, 2011

Icing the Kicker


There is a lot of controversy over whether or not Jason Garrett iced his own kicker this Sunday in the Cowboys game, and I can’t take it.

As a football fan, every single player & analyst I have ever heard has said that icing doesn’t work.  Icing, usually, only gives more time to a kicker to get comfortable and line himself up properly – I don’t have the #’s, but I am probably 100% sure that icing has shown no true effect on games – sometimes they make them, sometimes they miss.

That, however, is when the other team calls the timeout. 

I do believe icing the kicker happens when your own coach does it to you – mostly b/c you start to think, about anything…and in sports, overactive thinking is usually bad.

I have a recurring dream/nightmare that I can’t swing my golf club – that everything is in the way and even if I swung I know I couldn’t make contact. It usually results in my group/foursome holding back the entire course from progress, and results in me being so sad and frustrated that I can’t just hit the ball.  The worst part of the dream is just the thinking part – that I am over the ball convincing myself I can’t do it.

When a coach calls a timeout, sheepishly, right before a kick, you can only believe, as the kicker, that the coach is questioning something about the play, anything, who knows what, and I do believe it has the icing effect.

Fans and analysts are believing that Garrett iced the kicker in the old fashioned sense, that he was going to make it (and actually did), but then didn’t b/c he had to think about it.  That is partially true, but when your own coach second guesses a situation involving you, that’s icing on a whole new level.

I can predict this for you – at some point Bailey will have to kick another field goal at the end of regulation before this year is up, and I bet the opposing coach will try to ice him, and I can promise you that Bailey will make the FG – because icing by the opponent doesn’t work. At all.

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