Olindo Mare met with the media Saturday in Spartanburg and was impressive. He is slated to replace kicker John Kasay, the Panther fan favorite who was the last remaining original Panther from the original 1995 team.
Mare said he wasn't going to try and replace exactly what Kasay was in the community and with fans, just that he wanted to be himself and do what he has done in his own career. Like Kasay, 41, the 38-year-old Mare has been around the NFL block numerous times. He was hired because his leg strength is better than Kasay's and he can boom kickoffs into the end zone -- Kasay was still an extremely accurate kicker, but had not kicked off for the Panthers for the past three years.
Mare had 20 touchbacks on kickoffs last season. With the NFL moving kickoffs up to the 35 rather than the 30 this season, he said he hoped to "double" that to 40. He also predicted that the amount of touchbacks would go way up throughout the league, especially in domed stadiums, and said he understood that many fans may be frustrated because the kickoff return will be minimized as an impact play.
"And I think that's one of the most exciting plays in football," Mare said. The NFL made the change realizing that, but since kickoff returns also include a number of full-fledged collisions, moved the kickoff back to the 35 in the name of player safety.
One thing I didn't know about Mare: Oddly enough, he has lived in Mooresville for about the past five years. He's from Miami, his wife is from New York and they picked Mooresville as a place that was in between the two. So he doesn't have to buy a house in the Charlotte area with the $4-million signing bonus he received -- Mare already has one.
More on Mare in Sunday's Charlotte Observer and online.
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9 years ago
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22 comments:
Kasay is a better placekicker. Mare is better at kicking off. Why not get a punter that can kick off? Half the teams have the punter do the kicking off. Stooopid, stooopid, stooopid.
Doesn't was to replace Kasay "exactly?" Good, because he won't.
Since the success rate for extra points is almost 100% and will now be close to it for kickoffs, the word "foot" needs to be taken out of football.
Let's call it "Soccer"
Actually Mare is about the same as Kasay on place kicking. Mare has a career% of 81.4% and Kasay has a career% of 81.9% on FG. This means if Mare had made 2, just 2 more FG's in his career. He would HAVE the same FG% as Kasay. On the other hand Mare has a career PAT% of 98.9 while Kasay has a career PAT% of 97.9. Mare's avg. Kickoff is 64.5 yards while Kasay is 57.3 yards. Kasay has 970 kickoffs in his career with 92 TB's while Mare has 986 kickoffs with 238 TB's. What you get is a placekicker with just as good accuracy but a kickoff guy that will save you yardage on kickoffs and injuries. This will also save a sopt on th eteam for another player that is really needed....
Anonymous 2:31PM has way too much time on his hands.
That doesn't change the fact that John Kasay is a legend. He deserved the opportunity to retire a panther and have his number retired for his 15-16 years of awesome contributions. I know I'm going to miss seeing number 4 lining up for those 50 yarders with 10 seconds left
Anon 3:29 - I've missed John Kasay make 50 yard field goals with 10 sec left to win the game for a long time. Great guy, great panther. I wish Kasay still had the distance, but he doesn't anymore.
My only problem with the Mare acquisition is the way they handled Kasay. Sounds like he was blindsided and that was wrong. He has won many games for this team. I have worked with him numerous times at charitable functions and he is the consummate class act. Panthers couldn't ask for a better citizen off the field. He deserved a better send off. I hope he will get the chance to retire a Panther.
With another "Miami" addition, I most definitely will be rooting for the Panthers this year! Olindo is from our hometown of Cooper City, FL AND a former All-Star kicker from the Miami Dolphins so we're SUPER EXCITED!!! That's awesome that he already lives here! Best of Luck to him! No wonder we spotted him at the All-Star race last year...
I was a Redskins fan before Panther's team formed. Redskins is again my favorite team! Panthers have gone too far backwards!! :(
Not sure about a guy named Olindo -
just not sure...........
Redskins fan,
Do you have a point to your post?
"just not sure!"
Olindo is definitely a shade better than "kemo eat u" or maybe not. LOL!!
Kasay wasn't blindsided by this decision. Hurney handled it before hand with respect and told him this was about to take place. I'm a huge Kasay fan but we need only one kicker who can put the ball in the endzone on a consistent basis. Further, Mare's FG percentage is nearly identical to Kasay. Add to that Mare had to kick in Seattle, weather not the best most of the time and he is probably a slightly better kicker. Just my opinion.
I hope that the reason Kasay was let go wasn't because he was the players' union rep. Papa Richardson doesn't like dealing with those who are not bow down and kiss the ring players.
Replacing Kasay with an anchor baby is an insult! Another reason not to watch football this year. The Panthers were so horrid last year, painful to watch.
"Anonymous 2:31PM has way too much time on his hands"......Actually I did the same thing when they announced this move. I wanted to see how they compared. It took approx 45seconds to do. Any Panther fan more than likely did the same thing. Perhaps you need to stick to the Home and Garden section.
Comparing career numbers for a pair of players who have been in the league for 10+ years is idiotic. Let's look at the last five years:
Mare is only at 80.1% (109-136), including two years under 75%. Further, for all the big leg talk, he's only gone 6-17 from beyond 50 yards (35.3%.) Kasay, on the other hand, is at 123-142 (86.6%), including 10-16 from 50+. What was that about losing the distance, again? Mare's a better kickoff guy, sure, but I think we're definitely losing something in the placement game. Further, shoving a team legend out the door with several years left on his contract strikes me as disrespectful at best.
P.S.: Kasay's WORST percentage in the last five years was 2009, when he hit 81.5%, or better than Mare did during the entire time.
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