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An overlooked costly injury


4merper4mer

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There are a lot of injuries that I wish never happened to the Bills. Here's an overlooked one:

 

Dustin Hopkins

 

He was drafted, came in looked good and got hurt. Carpenter, who had one good year and several crappy years for the fish happened to be the kicker on the outside of the musical chairs game at the time. To his credit he re-produced his good year with Miami and stuck with the Bills......got a big contract.....and began sucking again almost immediately. He cost us a roster spot as well.

 

Yesterday's miss was very costly. Was it everything? No. But playing from 3 down on the road and being tied are a lot different.

 

Meanwhile our impatience with Hopkins is paying off big. For the Redskins.

 

I have been relatively anti-Rex and relatively pro-Whaley. On this one, I have to believe it is Whaley's issue.

 

I get that we're stuck with Carpenter for now but he sucks.

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What exactly is the lesson here? I'm not sure how else we were supposed to handle this.

 

 

i see two options:

 

Keep Hopkins on the practice squad as long as possible and give him a real shot at winning back the job he lost to injury.

 

Don't overpay a guy, and thus commit to him, after he has one very good season which was an anomaly if compared to his heretofore bad career.

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i see two options:

 

Keep Hopkins on the practice squad as long as possible and give him a real shot at winning back the job he lost to injury.

 

Don't overpay a guy, and thus commit to him, after he has one very good season which was an anomaly if compared to his heretofore bad career.

Didn't Carpenter make a 56 yard field goal to win a game in overtime? Why value the miss in Sunday's game over that make?

 

I agree the 3 points would have been great to have there, but I still think Dan Carpenter is fine. He's on thin ice for sure, but if he gets into a rhythm then there is no problem.

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They only scored 13 though. It would have tied the game at that point.... but we had 9 drives there is no reason to not to have even sniffed another score. I could even see if we missed 2 fgs. But I dont even care about the fg miss

 

 

If he made it the game would have been 10-10 I believe. I understand what you're saying but we're obviously living on a razor's edge already. Adding a crappy kicker to that mix is ill advised. He is a crappy kicker.

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It's almost as if Carpenter has a financial interest in the team or is writing a tell all book because the way he played last year, most teams would have gone in a different direction this season. The excuse that he was playing hurt is a reflection on the organization. As much as I like Whaley, other teams would never have stuck with an injured kicker, who was missing extra points with some frequency. If hurt, he should have been replaced on the active roster and possibly put on IR.

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Didn't Carpenter make a 56 yard field goal to win a game in overtime? Why value the miss in Sunday's game over that make?

 

I agree the 3 points would have been great to have there, but I still think Dan Carpenter is fine. He's on thin ice for sure, but if he gets into a rhythm then there is no problem.

 

 

His good year is over.

 

Carpenter is a bad kicker.

 

Kickers often have long careers and we could have had Hopkins for a long time but chose poorly.

 

If you were the GM of an expansion team and I gave you a choice of having Carpenter for the rest of his career or Hopkins for the rest of his, who would you choose?

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If it's a 10-10 game, I don't think the Ravens take the points off the board after the Worthy penalty. That puts 2 more minutes on the clock and maybe gives the Bills another possession. Of course a lot of things would have played out differently, but I do believe the miss was big....

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This was on Maroons watch BTW, and to B word about it 3 years later is pointless

 

 

I know it was not on Rex...never said it was. I never liked the move because I had seen Carpenter sucking for years I liked when he was in Miami. I get that Whaley had to make a choice....he made the wrong one. He did so after an undeniably strong year fro Carpenter. I get that and I also get Hopkins was an unknown quantity to an extent. Still we did draft him for a reason.

 

Basically I'm saying the injury was unfortunate and has cost us by saddling us with a bad kicker while we watch Gary Anderson part 2.

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I can't remember how it played out. I know Hopkins was injured but surely they could've stashed him on IR like Houston did his year with Ka'imi Fairbairn.

I can't either, but I seem to recall that we held on to Hopkins for a while and only released him when Carpenter starting playing lights out.

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I can't either, but I seem to recall that we held on to Hopkins for a while and only released him when Carpenter starting playing lights out.

That's how I remember it too. I think we even had both of them in camp the following year right before Carpenter reverted to form.

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From the ever-reliable Wikipedia -

 

On August 19, 2013, Hopkins was named the Buffalo Bills starting placekicker over veteran placekicker, Rian Lindell.[5] On September 2, 2013, Hopkins was revealed to have sustained a groin injury. This prompted the Bills to sign Dan Carpenter. Due to a slow recovery from that injury and the need to further open roster spots, Hopkins was placed on the injured reserve list after Week 5.

Hopkins was given a chance to earn back his roster spot during the 2014 season, but lost the competition to Carpenter; the Bills released Hopkins on August 25, 2014.

 

The timing sucked because Hopkins is a stud with a big kickoff leg.

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