The KICK is GOOD! POINTS win ball games! Van Heusen 'Smack Talk' contest (60 seconds)

[jmnatalie1]

I vote for GARY ANDERSON!  Agreed he should be there!

[luna945]

Damn Right GARY ANDERSON should be in there!

[ahoynickstevens]

Agreed on all fronts....EXCEPT that he missed the biggest kick of his career back in 1999.

[PembertonH]

You can't make them all. No kicker makes them all. Really good NFL kickers make about 80% of their kicks.

During their active playing years, Gary Anderson (career 80.1% kicker) lead Morten Andersen (career 79.7% kicker) as the NFL's all-time leading scorer until Anderson’s retirement in 2005, a monumental achievement.



The “only” pure kicker in the Pro Football Hall of Fame is Jan Stenerud, a career 66.8% kicker, with 1,699 career points, currently #11 all-time points leader...

[PembertonH]

...Kickers like Gary Anderson (2,434 career points, current #2 all-time points leader) and Morten Andersen (2,544 career points, current #1 all-time points leader) are true scoring legends of the game.

Kicker Gary Anderson has earned NFL fan respect and deserves to be inducted into the 2011 Pro Football Hall of Fame.

And in the future when other “leading scorer” kickers such as Morten Andersen, Carney, Stover and Vinateri become eligible, they too deserve Hall of Fame respect.

[PembertonH]

I recall the game you mentioned. Jan 17, 1999, NFC title game, late in the fourth quarter Anderson missed a 38-yard FG attempt. It was especially dramatic because he was perfect (100% kicking accuracy) during the 1998 regular season and hadn’t missed a kick in nearly 2 years...

[PembertonH]

...Anderson missed that one kick after an unprecedented stretch of 122 consecutive “good” kicks, however that was NOT the reason the Vikings lost that game. The fact is the Vikings had a 7 point lead late in the game when he missed that kick. Thereafter the Vikings defense gave up 10 unanswered points to lose that game. Some unfairly and incorrectly place the burden of this loss on one highly visible player. Yet true Vikings fans acknowledge that "the team" lost this game, not the kicker.

[PembertonH]

Anderson bounced back by regaining his pinpoint accuracy in the 2000 season, making 22 of 23 field goals (95.6% accuracy) - his only miss was a blocked 51-yard attempt by Warren Sapp.

Gary Anderson was one of the finest Place Kickers in the history of the league and his kicks were "pure" right down the middle with solid power and range. He was a scoring machine!

POINTS win ballgames. Anderson won ballgames!

One of the NFL's all-time greatest... and you can't ask for much better.