Zane Gonzalez is going to get picked way too early in the 2017 NFL draft

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Zane Gonzalez is a really good kicker. He may even be the top prospect at the position since Sebastian Janikowski. And that means that like Janikowski and Roberto Aguayo, Gonzalez is probably about to be picked laughably early.

It used to be common practice to take a kicker relatively early in the NFL draft. In the 14 drafts between 1986 and 1999, there were nine kickers drafted in the first three rounds, and then the Oakland Raiders topped everybody by taking Janikowski at No. 17 overall in 2000.

Maybe that craziness is what got teams to snap out of it. For a decade, no kicker went in the first three rounds before the Buccaneers broke the streak by taking Aguayo in the second round last year.

Efforts by the league to make extra points more difficult and touchbacks easier to kick has made a good kicker more valuable, but the pick of Aguayo was still laughable.

However, don’t be surprised at all if another NFL team does it again with Gonzalez one year later.

The Buccaneers may have set the market when they drafted Aguayo at No. 59 overall in 2016. For teams in need of a kicker — which includes the Cincinnati Bengals, Carolina Panthers, and Minnesota Vikings — the reality may be that a second-day draft pick is the only way to secure Gonzalez, especially if he’s graded higher than Aguayo.

And that’s really the crux of it. Gonzalez may actually be better than the kicker who went in the second round last year. NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah said during the Senior Bowl that he talked to a scout that believed as much.

Aguayo’s case as the top kicker in college football history was tied to his accuracy, connecting on 267 of 276 of his career kicks at Florida State. The 96.73 percent is the highest mark in college football history, and yet Gonzalez still has arguments as a better kicker.

Big leg

Aguayo kicked six field goals of more than 50 yards in three years at FSU and kicked touchbacks on 55.95 percent of his kickoffs. Gonzalez was trusted much more often at Arizona State with big kicks.

As a senior, he made seven of nine field goals from more than 50 yards and he booted touchbacks on 75.3 percent of his kickoffs in his last two seasons.

When Gonzalez arrived at Arizona State, he was listed at just 160 pounds and split kicking duties with Alex Garoutte, who handled kickoff duties. But Gonzalez added weight through the years, added leg strength, and weighed in at the NFL Combine at 202 pounds.

Unlike Aguayo, Gonzalez has given NFL teams reason to trust him with the toughest kicks and to eliminate opposing kick returns.

Yip proof

If Gonzalez doesn’t get picked in the second day of the 2017 NFL Draft, it may have a lot to do with Aguayo’s struggles as a rookie. The kicker missed four of his first seven field goals, and made an NFL-worst 71 percent of his field goals on the season.

There weren’t many warning signs that Aguayo would struggle with the pressures of the NFL, but it seems even more outside the character of Gonzalez, a person who seems unaffected by pressure altogether.

“I’m just worried about the snap,” ASU coach Todd Graham said after Gonzalez kicked an overtime game-winner in 2014, via AZ Central. “I don’t worry about him. He has a personality that gives you a lot of confidence. He’s the best I’ve been around. If he lines up right, he’s going to make every field goal he tries.”

Any team that wants to pick Gonzalez will have to feel comfortable that his stress-free personality translates to the NFL and there isn’t any reason to believe that Gonzalez will get the rookie yips.

Because he’s a kicker. Come on.

There are scenarios where field goals can decide football games, but even the worst kickers in the NFL make more than 70 percent of their kicks, while only the top 5-10 kickers make more than 90 percent.

Justin Tucker, Matt Bryant, and Ryan Succop were the only kickers in 2016 to play in 16 games and make more than 90 percent of their field goals. Succop was selected in the seventh round of the 2009 NFL Draft while both Bryant and Tucker were undrafted.

It has proven to be a position that doesn’t require a draft pick at all to find, let alone a valuable one that can be used to actually make the team move up and down the field or stop the other team from doing so.

Having a 90 percent chance to make a crucial field goal instead of a 70 percent chance is nice, but every team can benefit much more by looking for upgrades at other positions in the second or third rounds.

In an era where analytics are increasingly depended upon to inform NFL decision making, maybe teams are finally figuring that out. But the Buccaneers didn’t in 2016 and the odds are that another team will make the same error this time around.