Byline: Special to The Capital Times
GREEN BAY -- Last in a series
Ryan Longwell entered last season as the most accurate kicker in NFL history, which is why Green Bay Packers coach Mike Sherman believes the sixth-year pro's lackluster effort was an aberration.
With Josh Bidwell turning in a breakthrough season at punter, special teams are the one area the franchise did not tinker with in its offseason personnel overhaul.
Longwell, a five-year veteran who fell to fifth on the all-time NFL accuracy chart, spent the offseason examining every part of his game -- and anything that affected it -- because last year simply wasn't acceptable.
'I had four great years, and kind of a half of a great year last year,' Longwell said. 'By my standards, it was very disappointing and so I worked very hard this offseason and looked at what happened last year, addressed the problems and adjusted what I needed to.
'I'm extremely motivated to have a great season and hopefully help us get to the playoffs.'
So far during training camp, Longwell again resembles the kicker who almost never missed. His hang time on kickoffs is up from 3.6 seconds to 4.0 and there have been few failed field-goal attempts.
After a superb 2000 season, Longwell had made 111 of 131 field goals for 84.7 percent. Consequently, he was rewarded with a five-year contract worth $7.5 million -- including a signing bonus of $2 million -- at the time making him the highest-paid kicker in the league.
But things started to go wrong last season.
Longwell's kickoffs were shorter and by midseason he was missing field goals on a regular basis. Even his string of 104 extra points, going back to the beginning of 1999, was snapped when his first attempt against Cleveland on Dec. 23 was blocked.
He made just 20 of 31 field-goal attempts, a success rate of 64.5 percent that ranked last in the NFC and 28th in the 31-team NFL.
'He lost his rhythm last year and lost his groove -- for whatever reason,' Packers special teams coach Frank Novak said. 'It's hard a lot of times to pinpoint it, but he wasn't the same guy that he was the year before.'
Overall, few seem overly concerned about Longwell's subpar season a year ago -- including the kicker himself.
'I know I belong here and I proved it for four years,' he said. 'When I go through a tough game or a tough stretch of games like last year, I'm not going to let 4 1/2 years go by the waysides, or say I can't do this any more.
'I expect to pick up right where I left off last year.'
Bidwell, meanwhile, appears to be on his way to establishing himself as a solid pro. After missing his rookie year battling testicular cancer, the former University of Oregon standout averaged a modest 38.5 yards per punt in 2000. But he upped that average to 42.5 yards per punt a year ago. In 2001, his 36.5-yard net average was third among NFL punters.
The one area the Packers failed to address was kickoff return, where a hole was created by the departure of Allen Rossum to Atlanta through free agency. Novak is throwing everyone Sherman will allow him against the wall and seeing if anyone sticks.
'I'm looking for anybody that shows anything,' Novak said this week. 'That's where we're at. It's not like we've got a legitimate guy back there like Michael Bates. It doesn't mean we still can't be productive, if we can just come up with a couple good guys to do it.'
Rossum was a valued commodity as both a punt and kickoff returner, and emergency defensive back, but the Packers couldn't compete with the Falcons' offer that allows him to compete for a job in their nickel defense.
That leaves Novak with a group of players with little, if any, kickoff returning in their backgrounds: Javon Walker, a first-round pick and a receiver; Najeh Davenport, a fourth-round pick and a fullback; Robert Ferguson, a receiver; Herbert Goodman and Rondell Mealey, both backup halfbacks; Darrien Gordon, a punt returner; and possibly Tod McBride, a cornerback.
The most intriguing prospects are Walker and Davenport, neither of whom returned kickoffs in college.
Walker clocked 4.3 seconds in the 40-yard dash, making him one of the fastest players on the team. But return skills are almost impossible to gauge in practice because there's no tackling, so the Packers won't know until the preseason whether Walker has courage and instincts as a returner.
'There's a lot of guys that play in this league but didn't do their skill a lot in college and then they blossom,' Novak said.
'Does he have the vision? I don't know that. He hits it pretty good. He doesn't do a lot of juking around. Does he have a feel for it? Does he have an understanding of the return? Does he have a knack? I don't know.'
Davenport is interesting because of his size; he weighs about 245 pounds, huge for a return man. Also, he appears to have some speed -- he went to the University of Miami as a halfback, and his explosiveness for a big man has been apparent since the start of training camp.
A foot injury, however, has acted up recently and kept him from practicing for 2 1/2 days. The injury risk, plus the uncertainty of whether he'll be healthy enough to play, might keep him from competing for the job.
Though Mealey doesn't appear to have the explosiveness to be the primary return man, he could be one of the two deep men on kickoffs because of the knowledge he gained in the return game last season. He returned four kickoffs for an average of 15.8 yards.
'I want Rondell Mealey back there because he directs traffic well,' Novak said. 'He makes good decisions and he's tough enough to block people.'
Gordon goes into training camp as the top candidate for punt returner and also is a backup cornerback. But Ferguson will get a shot to beat him out. Ferguson dressed for only one game last season -- at Jacksonville, because Rossum was injured -- and fielded three punts, two for fair catches and one that he returned 4 yards.
'He didn't screw it up, and that's the first step,' Sherman said. 'That's all I was worried about.'
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FILE PHOTO
Packers kicker Ryan Longwell struggled for the first time in his pro career during the 2001 season as he hit just 20 of 31 field-goal attempts.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Packers punter Josh Bidwell, who averaged 42.5 yards per kick last season, has some fun on the sidelines during a recent training camp workout in Green Bay.
