Welcome to Gramatica Errors, SB Nation’s weekly kicking and punting column. As always, we will do our best to avoid any and all foot puns. Now let’s kick things off ...
Slide to the left. Slide to the right. Criss-cross. Criss-cross.
The Jaguars’ Josh Lambo — a former professional soccer player who trialed with Everton and played for the United States youth national team — brought the beautiful game to the NFL this weekend after he converted a field goal to give Jacksonville a win over the Chargers.
Look at the knee slide:
Celebration of the NFL season. Josh Lambo getting his football on pic.twitter.com/PrmZ4ELq7y
— Chris Deeley (@ThatChris1209) November 12, 2017
This is especially wonderful for Lambo, as he was cut by the Chargers before the season began in favor of Younghoe Koo, who the Chargers then cut. (RIP Younghoe.) REVENGE KICK. It was also wonderful for Lambo as he was a goalie in soccer and had to spend a career watching opponents do this shit on him after they scored. Well guess who’s doing the scoring and knee sliding now? THE LAMBO-GHINI.
(I know Lambo-ghini is really the way to go for a nickname here, but I’m not in love with it. Too easy. Lambo-chop? Lambomination? Lambulatory? John Lambo? Ugh. Let’s stick with Lambo-ghini. I’m not happy about it, though.)
A thinning of the Hoof Herd
The Los Angeles Rams beat the Houston Texans 33-7 this weekend, but the blowout score doesn’t tell the story of the entire game, which started out even and extremely slowly for both teams.
One stretch in the first quarter featured a series of offensive drives that were as incompetent as they were kind of low-key funny. LOOK UPON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR.
Listen, I understand that this type of football isn’t for everyone. I recognize that many of you may have seen this passage of play in the first quarter and called it “boring” or “an abomination” or “Fuck this, you know what? I’m going to get into curling. I said it. Curling. That sport seems alright. They sweep the ice. They move the puck along there. No. Wait. It’s not called a puck. That’s hockey. What do they call it? A rock? Wait let me Google. Hm. OK. Wikipedia says they call it a stone. I was close with my rock guess. Anyway, seems like a soothing sport to watch. Yeah. Curling. That’s what I’ll watch now.”
But to say any of that would be to miss the point. And the point is the punts. The wondrous, wondrous punts.
We had the Texans’ Shane Lechler and the Rams’ Johnny Hekker, two of the best punters to ever play the game, trading off bombs to the delight of, well, like me and a few other people on the internet.
Let’s go to friend of the column and Toe Boy for Life, Garret Heinrich:
If these two teams want to just keep going 3-and-out so we can watch Lechler and Hekker all day I'm not going to be upset at all.
— Garret Heinrich (@GarretHeinrich) November 12, 2017
This is the best of all time and maybe the best young punter on the field together.
At press time, that tweet had two likes. I was one of them.
Of course there are two ways to see this: Some people might say that Garret and I have a refined appreciation for the subtler moments of a football game, are very handsome, and we should be applauded. Others might say that we are weird-ass fanboys deserving of nitro wedgies. Who’s to say who is right?
I am. Garret and I are dope, and all of you are goddamn Philistines. We had Shane Lechler and Johnny Hekker (or, if you prefer the Bennifer-style portmanteau nickname I just made up in my head, Jane Heckler) dropping bombs for the world to see and everyone who was bitching on Twitter is an idiot. All of you are hereby expelled from the Uprights Citizens Brigade, where all the Cool Toe Boys hang. Good riddance.
Nobody is coaching the Kicker Men
My colleague Adam Stites has a fantastic story out today on this here website about the coaching of NFL kickers, and found that, at least when it comes to technique, NFL kickers aren’t getting any. Coaching, that is. (Re: the other thing, I’m sure they’re doing fine.)
In his reporting, Stites found that only one NFL team — the Baltimore Ravens — has a coach specifically working on kicking technique. It seems, I dunno, interesting that the one team with a coach working on kicking technique has a kicker, Justin Tucker, who has been one of the absolute best in the league over the last five years.
There’s a ton of other interesting stuff in the story, and again — you should read it. So go do that.