The snap-to-hold work in Week 5 gave us six kicks to slow down, and the operation was mostly clean even if the results on the scoreboard were not. The highest snap of the day came first, and it ended up being the toughest one for the specialist on that side of the operation.
On the opening extra point, the snap came up right at the face of Whelan. It wasn’t above the helmet, but it was high.
Even so, Whelan handled it well and got the ball down for a solid hold, with the ball sitting slightly forward and leaning away from Smack. The whole sequence was clean from snap to strike, and Smack drove it through.
The wind looked active too, with both flags pointing inward at one point.
The third kick, another extra point, started with a snap that was a little high but still over the hold point. Whelan again made the recovery look easy and delivered a good hold.
The issue appeared to be on Smack’s end, where he may have overstepped on his plant foot. He was very close to the ball, with the back of his heel lined up with it, and that seemed to open his back shoulder a bit more than on his earlier kicks.
The result was a pull.
There was a noticeable contrast between that miss and the next made kick. On the 35-yard field goal, the snap was over the hold, the rotation was good, and the hold was clean.
The ball leaned forward more than on previous tries, which often shows up when a unit is trying to deal with wind or when the attempt is longer. That one split inside the right upright and went through.
That field goal also carried some pressure up front. Jordan Morgan [77] lost his man to the inside, and Karl Brooks [94] couldn’t get a hand on his blocker to affect the path.
That kick could easily have turned into a block. Brooks had the same problem on the previous kick as well, staying with his hands too high and not doing enough when opponents dipped under him.
The final two kicks offered another useful comparison. One snap came to the body of Whelan, but it was still a manageable location.
He got it turned into an ideal hold, and Smack pulled the kick. The next snap was over the hold point, the hold was good, and this time Smack pushed it.
Looking back at those last two attempts, the difference seemed to show up in Smack’s leg angle. On the pull, he looked like he was planting to drive through the ball.
On the push, he appeared more deliberate, trying to kick more straight through contact. That was the pattern after enough viewing to compare the screenshots over and over.
By the end of the day, the high snap on Kick 1 stood out as Orzech’s worst snap of the season, but the rest of the snaps were solid. The misses looked more like Smack’s problem than anything else, while Whelan put together another strong day.
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