I’m bringing back a series I had a lot of fun exploring the last several offseasons. Every player wants to improve, to elevate his game in all areas from one season to the next. Understanding that, we’re going to isolate just one area, one faction of a player’s game. The biggest area for improvement.
Kameron Canaday – Snapping Consistency
You know we focus on everything and everyone on this website. And one guy who did not have a good year last year was long snapper Kameron Canaday. He’s done well to revive his NFL career after Bruce Arians cut him in Arizona after a couple of ugly snaps and Canaday had a couple of good years in Pittsburgh. 2020 wasn’t one of them.
It can, of course, be difficult to evaluate long snappers. And to be fair, the only time we’re really paying attention to them is when things have gone wrong. Just like an offensive lineman, if their name is being called, it’s generally for the wrong reasons.
But throughout last seasons, his snapping accuracy was poor. It’s a job with a narrow margin of error but the field goals being an operation, snapper, holder, kicker, everything has to be perfect. Every. Single. Time. It’s all about timing and rhythm and anything that disrupts that flow jeopardizes the kick.
Canaday had 69 snaps last season. 45 on extra points, 24 on field goals. By my count, there were at least five “bad” snaps. That’s 7.2% of them that were what I would consider poor and there were a couple other borderline ones. I don’t know what the average or elite numbers are for long snappers but closing in on a 10% fail rate as a snapper is not what I consider acceptable. One, maybe two poor snaps is what I’d consider “normal.”
Because we like to show our work, here are those five snaps. One led to a missed field goal, Chris Boswell’s first of the season. His snaps missed in different ways. Generally, they were a little low but there were issues of them being too far inside/outside too.
I want to see the 2018-2019 Canaday in 2021. Especially if there’s going to be a new holder in Pressley Harvin III should be beat out Jordan Berry to be the team’s starting punter (and holder). Don’t need to make a rookie sweat trying to adjust, even though PH3 has holding experience in college. Regaining that consistency will be crucial, starting this preseason, or else it might be time to exploring other options at the position.
