Palardy kicking himself

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/08/2011 (5199 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He has made a lot of very long — and very important — kicks and he has brought stability to a position that had been a revolving door for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in recent years.

But Justin Palardy has also, lately, missed some very short and very makeable kicks — including four under 40 yards this season and two under 30 yards.

And so you could see both sides of the equation against Edmonton last Friday — the dejection of a kicker and the frustration of the Canad Inns fans — when Palardy trotted off the field in the second quarter to more than a smattering of boos from the sellout crowd.

Palardy had just missed his second field goal of the game — a 32-yarder. And what made it worse was the miss came just a few minutes after Palardy had missed an even shorter field goal attempt — a 22-yard chip shot.

Now, the 23-year-old Palardy has made all kinds of field goals this season — he leads the league with 16 — for a team with an offence that has stalled far too often in the red zone and has put an unusual amount of pressure on its place-kicker to generate offence.

Indeed, the 23 field goal attempts Palardy has attempted this season are, by far, the most by any place-kicker in the CFL — six more than the second busiest kickers in the league, B.C.’s Paul McCallum and Calgary’s Rene Paredes.

But Palardy’s seven missed field goals also lead the league and his accuracy percentage after going 1-for-3 last week against Edmonton — he later made a 33-yarder — is now dead-last in the CFL at just 69.6 per cent. That’s a long way from his performance last year, when Palardy missed just four of 30 attempts and finished with an 86.7 per cent average.

But more than anything, what has been raising eyebrows has been where Palardy has been missing from this season. The two misses against Edmonton stood out because they were short and came in the same game, but Palardy has also missed this season from 28 yards and from 38 yards in a profession where coaches expect anything inside the 40 to be automatic.

But far from calling out his kicker — something previous Bombers head coaches have not been hesitant about — current field boss Paul LaPolice sounds these days like he almost feels as bad for his kicker as his kicker does.

“After he missed the second one (against Edmonton),” LaPolice recalled Thursday, “I went up to him and said, ‘Listen, we brought you here to kick. We’re going to give you more opportunities and you’re going to make those kicks.’

“Look, the kid doesn’t want to miss them. And I’ve been around (coaches) who will demean (a kicker) after that. I want to pump him up… And he performed. He made the next field goal when we put him out there. So hat’s off to him. He’s a young kid. He’s going to continue to learn, but I think he’s a mentally tough kid.”

Bombers special teams coach Kyle Walters pointed out Winnipeg can be a tough place to kick with its swirling winds, but sometimes you just miss. “Everything looks clean,” he said. “He just missed them. One he pushed, one he pulled. He didn’t make them and that’s that.”

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“Winnipeg is a tough place to earn your stripes for a kicker, but going through ups and downs is part of the job and we’re hoping this makes him mentally tougher.”

The final word goes to Palardy, who was making no excuses on Thursday.

“After a game like that, you just want to forget about it and move on,” Palardy said. “All I can do is go out and fix it and that’s what I’m hoping to do in B.C. this week.

“It’s not the best of feelings right now, but I’m working through it and hopefully it makes me a better player… I know how to kick the ball, I just have to stay calm and focused and do my job.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca