Watching the playoffs again, i’m okay with Bass for now

[SoCal Deek]

Something was tweaked for sure. He had developed a wicked, and consistent SLICE in his kicks, but he clearly straightened it out. I have to hope this was something that the coaching staff worked on with him. So often on here we're quick to criticize the players and completely overlook the positional coaching staff. In baseball, golf, etc. coaches will work for hours analyzing the slightest change in swing and stroke. In football, we tend to assume the player is out there completely on his own. Why the long answer?  Because I have to wonder if the same is true of our Defensive Line, especially our EDGE rushers. 

[I'm Spartacus]

Maybe some of Bass' early struggles were due to our poor special teams coaching. Smiley is gone, hopefully the new coach will have a better effect on all the special teams players.

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

9 hours ago, Brand J said:

I meant by drafting one with promise. You can usually get a good kicker from round 5 on.

 

Agree with that part

 

7 hours ago, MJS said:

And many of them flame out. It's still a crap shoot.

 

Exactly

 

7 hours ago, Brand J said:

It’ll be a crap shoot either way - going with an unproven rookie, or continuing with Bass (who we know has had a case of the yips). 

 

I think the odds of it becoming a crap shoot are much higher with a rookie than with Bass.  Likely too if you did draft a rookie, throughout the entire preseason, the rookie may do all the kicking and even if they split 50/50 it still may only be 6 or 7 attempts between the two of them.  In your mind 3 or 4 kicks apiece in subdued game conditions plus practice would determine a "winner"?   I wouldn't be opposed to using a late round pick on a rookie, but unless Bass totally falls apart before the season starts, there's no real competition, this rookie is just there in case of emergency or Bass struggles real bad mid season.

 

Best case would be to draft the rookie and place him on the PS, but if he did look even half way decent in preseason a good chance another team grabs him when you cut him to try and move him to the PS or if not then, during the season if a teams kicker got hurt.  Actually real best case would be you make the guy kick until his leg is ready to fall off and he strains a muscle, then can move him to IR and keep him there all year unless Bass really struggles.  But that means using one of believe it's two OR designated to return slots and doubt the team would want to do that for a kicker. 

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

1 hour ago, SoCal Deek said:

Something was tweaked for sure. He had developed a wicked, and consistent SLICE in his kicks, but he clearly straightened it out. I have to hope this was something that the coaching staff worked on with him. So often on here we're quick to criticize the players and completely overlook the positional coaching staff. In baseball, golf, etc. coaches will work for hours analyzing the slightest change in swing and stroke. In football, we tend to assume the player is out there completely on his own. Why the long answer?  Because I have to wonder if the same is true of our Defensive Line, especially our EDGE rushers. 

 

I feel like he stopped trying to play the slice by the end of the year and was more consistent just kicking dead on.  Like most of his missed XPs were slices that got away from him on his preferred hash (he also had a really ugly kick earlier in the year).  Instead of just trying to play that, i felt like he was trying to kick them harder (faster?) so slice was less of an issue.

[BuffaloMatt]

OhhMatic in playoffs!

[JP51]

I think when i look at the cap hit to get rid of an replace him... he did enough to be the leader in the club house... but I am not gonna lie... his leash with me is pretty short... 

[Buffalo716]

4 hours ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

I feel like he stopped trying to play the slice by the end of the year and was more consistent just kicking dead on.  Like most of his missed XPs were slices that got away from him on his preferred hash (he also had a really ugly kick earlier in the year).  Instead of just trying to play that, i felt like he was trying to kick them harder (faster?) so slice was less of an issue.

Thats slice that people keep talking about was always part of his game 

 

A slice would be unintentional.. his is more of a fade .. like he tries to control it

 

AKA a controlled slice.. that's why he puts his extra point on the left hash because his kicks always had some left to right movement 

 

That's why I was always a little bit more nervous on the right hash because his balls move left to right

[machine gun kelly]

16 hours ago, Brand J said:

They should bring in legitimate competition for Bass, not a guy who had a 1% chance of unseating him during the regular season. If he wins the job again, great. 

You weren’t going to get that in the middle of the season.  Now, we have 10 picks so one if the two 6th rd picks we have on a kicker.  Many teams do not use a draft pick, so you’d be assured of getting a decent one.  Then, we’ll see, but at least we’d have you’re competition, amd if nothing else, have one on the PS.

[May Day 10]

Bass rebounded quite well and made some big kicks.

 

 

Kicking all over the league seemed uneven last year.  

[billsfan89]

Kickers are weird their confidence comes and goes. After that 60+ yard field goal in Miami Bass went from shaky to mostly reliable outside of missing a couple of PAT's. So Bass lost his confidence in 2023 but he regained it in 2024. Just hoping his confidence lasts for a few seasons. It's not worth it to have a kicker just go through consistent ups and downs. 

[mannc]

Bass did not cost the Bills a single game this year, and probably won us a couple...can't ask for more than that. 

[Augie]

I hope he causes someone to consider posting that Bass-O-Matic commercial. I really don’t want to see it again, I just want him to be good enough to warrant it. 

 

 

Who am I kidding, it makes me laugh. 

[MJS]

7 hours ago, I'm Spartacus said:

Maybe some of Bass' early struggles were due to our poor special teams coaching. Smiley is gone, hopefully the new coach will have a better effect on all the special teams players.

I doubt it. Either a kicker is kicking with proper technique or he is not. Any NFL kicker or special teams coach can immediately diagnose what the issue is in real time. Bass knew exactly what his issue was, but it took time to drill it out of himself.

 

And the mental side of it is when you are thinking about using proper technique, it is hard to actually do it because you overthink everything and become robotic rather than just using muscle memory to do it.

[Thrivefourfive]

I am too. He nailed everything there late. If he’d just stop missing the easy one, we can live with that. 

[LABILLBACKER]

17 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

Something was tweaked for sure. He had developed a wicked, and consistent SLICE in his kicks, but he clearly straightened it out. I have to hope this was something that the coaching staff worked on with him. So often on here we're quick to criticize the players and completely overlook the positional coaching staff. In baseball, golf, etc. coaches will work for hours analyzing the slightest change in swing and stroke. In football, we tend to assume the player is out there completely on his own. Why the long answer?  Because I have to wonder if the same is true of our Defensive Line, especially our EDGE rushers. 

He definitely had a mechanical flaw and he fixed it. Now if we could just teach AJ to not rush 10 yards past the qb.

[transplantbillsfan]

Bass is fine. He's redeemed himself already.

 

Moving on...

[Scott7975]

I been rough on Bass since early last season. Seems like he got his mojo back. I really hope he keeps it as I hated being rough on him. I even had tears in my eyes for him when he nailed that big kick against Miami and the whole team rallied him.

[Don Otreply]

For all intent and purpose, Bass is as good a kicker as this team has ever had, it humors me that the title say “I’m okay with Bass for now”  like there is some other kicker who “never” misses kicks, just hanging around waiting to pick up the phone…,