Maybe you tuned into Episode 2 of this season of Hard Knocks to see behind-the-scenes footage of Jameis Winston, or to learn about the Buccaneers’ myriad personalities, or to watch cool training camp montages. I don’t know. I know what I care about, though, and that’s kicking battles—and boy, did the latest installment of Hard Knocks ever deliver.
As you may know, the Bucs cut kicker Roberto Aguayo on Saturday. After the move, my colleague Kevin Clark labeled Aguayo as the funniest (but not worst!) draft pick of all time. Tampa Bay did not just select Aguayo in the second round of the 2016 draft; the franchise traded up to take him with the 59th overall pick, paying a large premium to do so. To justify his price tag, Aguayo would have needed to become one of the best kickers of all time. And teams haven’t historically needed to use high-round draft picks to find great kickers; four of the top five and 11 of the top 13 qualified kickers in league history by field goal accuracy went undrafted.
Last season, Aguayo was decidedly not one of the best kickers of all time. The Florida State product appeared to get the yips and made just 22 of his 31 field goal tries. For a team to cut any second-round draft pick after just one season amounts to a concession of a massive scouting error; that every other team in the league knew not to draft a kicker so highly only adds to the Bucs’ embarrassment. (Justis Mosqueda of Setting the Edge argues that Tampa Bay should have seen Aguayo’s issues coming before the draft.) On Hard Knocks, we got to watch the Buccaneers brain trust admit its mistake.
If I had edited this episode, it would have featured about 54 minutes of Tampa Bay’s kicker battle and three minutes of other stuff. Instead, I’d say we got around 10 minutes of the kicker battle, highlighted by defensive tackle Chris Baker insulting both Aguayo and competitor Nick Folk into misses:
On average, teams block a few field goals per season. Baker’s heckling may just be the most effective field goal defense in the NFL. When Baker eases up before a preseason game against the Bengals, Folk has no problems.
For as fun as kicker battles are, though, the scene of Aguayo getting cut was a bummer:
It would’ve been more fun if Baker were in the room. HOW’D YOU MISS MORE EXTRA POINTS IN ONE SEASON THAN YOU DID IN YOUR WHOLE COLLEGE CAREER? WIIIIIIIIDE LEFT! WATCH THE NEXT DRAFT, THESE IDIOTS ARE GONNA PICK A LONG SNAPPER. I’M IN THEIR HEAD!
For those interested in aspects of football besides kicker battles, this episode of Hard Knocks was also good:
— In spite of its new, relaxed celebration rules, the NFL still penalizes players for “sexual” on-field celebrations—but it does not provide clarity as to what “sexual” means in this context. What if a particular official gets turned on by different things than the league office? Do players have to study each referee’s individual kinks?
It turns out I’m not the only person to notice this issue. The Buccaneers brought in Ed Hochuli to advise the team on its celebrations, and defensive tackle Gerald McCoy grilled him over what is sexual and what isn’t:
“That’s not sex! That’s knees!”
McCoy eventually comes to the conclusion that facial expressions are pivotal to sexuality in football celebrations, leading to this dance:
Beyond celebrations, McCoy is easily the star of this season. Perhaps my favorite thing to watch is NFL players marveling over other NFL players kicking ass. Here is about a minute of that as it pertains to McCoy:
— NFL fans have long marveled at Hochuli’s muscles. This is what the referee looks like in normal clothing:
Hochuli acted out a bow-and-arrow celebration. Nobody asked him to do this. Only one player in the league has regularly done it. But when you’ve got guns like Ed’s, you take every opportunity you can to show them off.
— This episode featured Miko Grimes, the wife of Bucs cornerback Brent Grimes. She tweets a lot. She tweets a loooooooot. She even claimed that she intentionally trashed her Pro Bowl husband’s former team on Twitter to get him cut so that he could then sign with Tampa Bay. I could write more about this segment, but I think it would be more valuable to show you Brent’s face as Miko describes her involvement in his career:
— The exceptional camerawork in this episode brought me something I didn’t know I needed: RYAN FITZPATRICK RUNNING FACE.
Fitzpatrick’s eyes look like they’re trying to escape from their sockets, and his mustache looks like it’s trying to escape from his face. Basically every aspect of his head seems ready to burst out of his helmet, including his big brain, which is worth calling out because Fitzpatrick went to Harvard!
— I get fired if I say “Ryan Fitzpatrick” without mentioning the Harvard thing, so to reiterate: Ryan Fitzpatrick went to Harvard.
— Winston has two motivational tactics. The first is extreme enthusiasm. Here he is before a preseason game, personally encouraging every Bucs player, down to the third-stringers, by screaming about how this is the team’s one opportunity:
(By my count, the Buccaneers have three more preseason opportunities and 16 regular-season ones.)
Here Winston is at a random practice. I worry he’s going to tear an ACL doing a cartwheel one of these days.
The quarterback’s other tactic is biting passive-aggression. After the team’s backup offensive linemen allowed third-string passer Ryan Griffin to take a hit on which he suffered a shoulder injury, Winston took a leisurely stroll alongside the bench:
Winston also makes sure fourth-string quarterback Sefo Liufau knows that he can get cut at literally any moment:
Liufau will likely get cut at some point, since that tends to be the plight of fourth-string quarterbacks in the NFL. Yet that possibility raises an important question: Who would replace him when the Bucs play quarterbacks doubles ping-pong?
— I appreciated Winston yelling at Bengals linebacker and NFL injury causer Vontaze Burfict during the first quarter of a preseason game. “I know you a killer, but … really?”
— This was the second straight episode of HBO’s Hard Knocks to end with NFL players discussing Game of Thrones.
Quite frankly, it’s embarrassing to see an HBO-related entity partake in such shameless self-promotion. Anyway, here is where you can find all of The Ringer’s Game of Thrones content, including podcasts and live shows!
Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.
