Aug 27th 2008 2:19PM by Matt Moore (author feed)
Filed under: Chiefs, AFC West, NFL Free AgencJay Feely is a veteran kicker with a solid percentage looking for a job. The Kansas Chiefs boast one of the worst special teams units in the NFL, which is especially limited in kickoffs and field goals. So this seems like a pretty good fit? Right? Well, that’s what the Chiefs thought, so they brought in Feely on Monday to compete with Nick Novak and Colin Barth, both of whom have been severely underwhelming in the preseason. Novak missed the only field goal attempt the Chiefs had in their 24-0 beatdown by the Dolphins last Saturday, and neither of them look good in general.

So it may have surprised Feely a bit, and certainly did surprise his agent, when he got dumped by the Chiefs the following day. On Tuesday, the Chiefs had all three kickers kick 30 field goals. Feely, who had just come in, only hit 24, the least of the crew, and was summarily released. Let me put this in perspective. Brett Favre was in camp at Green Bay this season for longer than Jay Feely was with the Chiefs. He probably didn’t even have time to get barbecue. I’m not even sure if his hotel had time to clean his room.

Head coach Herm Edwards is having a rough go of it with field goal kickers. Last year he released Lawrence Tynes, which is fine, because it’s not like he ended up doing anything important. But then, kickers shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? I mean, it’s not like Edwards is the kind of coach that relies on field position and field goals to win a game, preferring to slug it out and not let your opponent have good field position, right? Wait. That’s exactly what Edwards is. So even if you subscribe to the theory of punting over scoring, Edwards doesn’t have the personnel to actually implement that kind of strategy. This should end well.