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Bucs rookie kicker, seeking help from mental coach, once said NFL kicking 'easier'

Plenty of athletes seek help for their mental struggles between the lines. But it’s rare to see a rookie do it before his first game.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers rookie kicker Roberto Aguayo, one of the most accomplished college kickers in recent history, has been off to a rough start to the preseason. According to team insider Roy Cummings via 620 WDAE Radio, Aguayo is consulting both a kicking coach and a “mental coach” after missing an extra-point try and two field-goal attempts in his first two professional games.

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Roberto Aguayo has been struggling (AP).
Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Roberto Aguayo has been struggling (AP).

Former NFL kicker Ryan Longwell and former Bucs special teams coordinator Billy Miller have been enlisted to try to help Aguayo with his mechanics. The mental coach is there to help repair Aguayo’s confidence, which he says has been shaken “a little bit.”

Aguayo missed 32- and 49-yard tries Saturday against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Bucs suffered through kicking problems most of last season, with the NFL’s third-worst made field-goal percentage as a team.

“I’m just focusing on relaxing and sometimes not thinking about it too much,” Aguayo said. “When you’re overthinking like, ‘OK, I have to do this and this and this,’ you get too many thoughts in your head. Sometimes you have to sit back and relax and just kick it. That’s the mindset going into practice and throughout this week.”

Quite the alarming development for the player the Bucs traded two draft picks up to take Aguayo with the 59th pick in the 2016 draft — the highest a kicker has gone in almost a decade. In three years of college (he declared after his junior season), he made all 198 of his (shorter) extra-point attempts, made 69-of-78 FG attempts and never missed a kick shorter than 40 yards at Florida State. He also had not missed a fourth-quarter kick in college since having his end-of-game attempt blocked against Georgia Tech and run back for an improbable game-winning score.

Is it possible the ghosts of that kick are still haunting him? That’s difficult to say. But Aguayo did mention at the NFL scouting combine that the Tech game was one of the few moment of adversity that he faced.

“I think the only thing adversity I had was coming off that Georgia Tech game, the blocked field goal and just ending up losing the game, just the way it happened,” he said back in February. “It was unfortunate for me and our team. I felt like I let the team down, but at the end of the day it was good adversity to go through. It made me a better person and overall a better kicker, and I fought through that. It was good because I had two years before that that were just a breeze, and fighting through that adversity, you need to get better sometimes.”

Aguayo also said at the combine that he thought NFL kicking would be easier than either high school or college.

“To me field goals, it’s easier,” he said. “The hashes are closer. Growing up I always thought, wow, NFL is much easier than high school, let alone college. Kickoffs are out the back. There’s not that much placement, not that much hang time putting it on the goal line, trying to cover. Kicks is usually kicking it out and trying to force things to start on the 20-yard line.”

Clearly with the NFL’s rule changes about kickoffs starting at the 25, that no longer applies. And the Bucs have had him working with two different holders, which certainly can cause for an adjustment period. Plus, the NFL kicking balls are different.

As we wrote in the Saturday Preseason Blitz, there’s still ample time for Aguayo to turn things around — plenty of terrific NFL kickers, such as Adam Vinatieri, struggled out of the chute as rookies. But hearing that Aguayo is seeking help from multiple people prior to his first regular-season game has to be a bit of a worry for the Bucs.

(h/t PFT)

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!