Buccaneers make Roberto Aguayo the highest drafted kicker in a decade
Aguayo is the most accurate kicker in college football history, successfully converting 267 of his 276 kicks at Florida State.
For the first time in 11 years, a kicker is off the board in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft, after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Florida State's Roberto Aguayo in the second round with the No. 59 overall selection. The Buccaneers traded up to select the kicker.
The last kicker to go as early as Aguayo was Mike Nugent, a second-round pick in the 2005 NFL Draft by the New York Jets after two All-American seasons at Ohio State. But if any player deserved to break the streak of passing on kickers, Aguayo fits the bill after earning the title of most accurate collegiate kicker ever in three years at Florida State.
By converting 267 of 276 of his kicks, Aguayo’s 96.73 percent edged the record of 96.67 set by Nebraska’s Alex Henery five years earlier.
Simply put, Aguayo was money and never missed an extra point, knocking through all but nine field goals in three years before becoming the first kicker in 16 years to declare early for the NFL Draft. The last kicker to do so was Sebastian Janikowski, a fellow FSU alum and a first-round pick in the 2000 NFL Draft.
In another era, Aguayo likely would’ve been an even earlier draft selection, as it wasn’t uncommon for kickers to go in the first three rounds. From 1992 to 2000, there were seven kickers taken in the first three rounds. But after a rule change made extra points more difficult in the NFL in 2015, the value of a good kicker was more apparent than ever.
There were 71 missed extra points last season after tries were backed up to the 15-yard line, one year after all but six tries were successful from the 2-yard line in 2014.
The 32-yard extra point attempts should be no problem for Aguayo, although if there’s a criticism for the kicker, it’s that he didn’t knock through many long attempts. It’s not that he missed them, it’s that he just didn’t try many, attempting just six field goals from more than 50 yards in his three seasons with the Seminoles.
Still, on the few times that he did get to kick from distance, he certainly didn’t appear to have any lack of leg strength:
Aguayo’s leg strength led to touchbacks on 55.95 percent of his kickoffs, the 25th-best mark in the nation in 2015. Not quite the elite level of a player breaking a streak of a decade of kickers outside the top three rounds, but it’s Aguayo’s accuracy as a place kicker that makes him valuable.
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