Kicking is a fickle mistress. Nobody knows that more than Cleveland Browns kicker Dustin Hopkins.
One year after delivering the best kicking performance of his career and being named a Pro Bowl alternate, Hopkins kicking swing has deserted him. Through 14 weeks, he's missed a career high nine field goals, for a career low made-kick percentage of 64%. That's a far cry from his career high 91.7 made field goal percentage last season, which included going eight-for-eight from 50-plus yards.
Despite the struggles, Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski made it clear that the team has no intentions of moving on from Hopkins. "He's our kicker," were Stefanski's exact words after the 34-year-old missed two kicks in a 27-14 loss to the Steelers.
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Special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone echoed those sentiments on Thursday, but did reveal that the team is weighing some options when it comes to trying to get Hopkins right. That could include giving him a week off.
"We've talked about a few different things and we're just gonna try to see how it goes today," Ventrone said. "Both [he and Riley Patterson] will kick today and then make a determination of how we're gonna go for this week."
The Browns signed Patterson, who spent most of last season on Cleveland's practice squad, to the practice squad at the start of the week. Based on Ventrone's comments it appears the team is at least considering Patterson could be elevated for Sunday and to kick in place of Hopkins.
If that comes to fruition though, wouldn't change how the team views Hopkins, who signed a three-year extension with the franchise this offseason, as its long-term kicker. Ventrone and company believe he'll get it sorted out, especially because he's putting a lot of time in to trying to diagnose the problem.
"We haven't had the results that we want with the kicks," said Ventrone. "He's just trying to work through it with going back an evaluating, really, his technique and why we're not getting the results we'd like to."
