Bob Kap wants to get his hands on Nate Kaeding's foot. He thinks he can streamline and straighten the Chargers' kicker, and he says his services are free of charge.
The man who helped midwife the European migration of soccer-style kickers watched Kaeding miss three field goals last Thursday in Green Bay and diagnosed his difficulties as too much approach and too little impact.
He'd like to see Kaeding take fewer steps and hit the ball higher on his foot.
"He hits it too far with the fingers," Kap said.
When he said, "fingers," Kap meant to say "toes." At 82 years old, a man earns some allowances.
"I called the coach to tell them (of his analysis), but most of them are so arrogant, they don't answer," Kap said. "If they want to send him here (to Washington, D.C.), let's spend three days and I'll tell him what he can do. If it doesn't work, they can blame me, not him."
A native of Yugoslavia, Kap is a former European soccer professional who emigrated to America to coach the North American Soccer League's Dallas Tornado in 1968.
Kap's coaching record would not inspire confidence – the Tornado won twice, tied four games and lost 26 that year – but his prodding caused the Cowboys to go global in their search for kickers.
Ultimately, Kap says, he would help nine European kickers find work in the NFL. If Pete Gogolak was the prototype for the soccer-style kicker, Bob Kap may have been the movement's Henry Ford. He was the man who put the model in mass production.
Thirty-four years since Kap helped steer the Cowboys to Austrian winger Toni Fritsch, his place-kicking precepts are pervasive. The "conventional" straight-on kicker has gone the way of the pterodactyl. To describe an NFL kicker as "soccer-style" nowadays is to indulge in redundancy.
Almost without exception, NFL kickers take two steps back from their intended spot, then two steps to the side, then simulate the angled swipe that Kap taught Fritsch before his Alpine audition for Tom Landry.
"All kickers in the NFL are using my steps – which is wrong," Kap said. "They should use the same steps, but cut one step when you're under 35 yards. One step is enough if you have a good leg. If he immediately kicks the ball, there's less chance to be blocked.
"One left (step) and BOOM."
As an accomplished artist whose work hangs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and an aspiring author with two books in progress (one on kicking, the other on politics), Kap regards the act of kicking as comparatively simple.
He is appalled by the seven-figure salaries NFL kickers command – "Better that it go to the guys who are breaking their necks and can be paralyzed," he said – and is unimpressed by their accuracy.
"The kickers, in general, are really poor," he said.
This much of Kap's opinion would seem harsh. Leaguewide, NFL kickers converted nearly 81 percent of their field goal attempts last season. Kaeding, whose reputation rests largely on his playoff miss against the New York Jets, made 20 field goals in 25 tries during the regular season. The three field goals he missed in Green Bay were from 44, 45 and 46 yards – certainly makeable, but certainly not chip shots in the soggy conditions.
To write him off in preseason, after a bad night in the rain, is a knee-jerk reaction that falls somewhere between premature and hysterical. True, Kaeding now carries a burden of proof atop his shoulder pads. Yet Kaeding's body of work is still worthy of the further chances Marty Schottenheimer has chosen to grant him.
The Chargers should wait at least another week before calling Kap for a consultation. They should wait at least two more weeks before testing prospective replacements. They will surely wait a while longer before testing Kap's hypothesis that NFL kicking could easily be woman's work.
"There is a famous American girl who plays soccer," he said.
He was referring to the recently retired Mia Hamm.
"Is she good-looking?"
Nomar Garciaparra seems to think so.
"It would be fun to train her," Kap said. "There are many girls who have good legs. Not only good-looking, but good legs."
But we digress. Where were we? Oh, yes. Nate Kaeding.
"Going back to your kicker, he needs to improve," Kap said. "The way he's using those steps doesn't make good advertising for me. I'd like to help him, if (the Chargers) like him. If not, they can find another one."
It ought to be easy. Soccer is played everywhere.
Tim Sullivan: (619) 293-1033; tim.sullivan@uniontrib.com
