With Jaeger Kicking, There Are Few Complications

The Raiders’ most lethal scoring weapon has never taken a meaningful note in a team meeting. He doesn’t attend practices because, well, they bore him. He takes leisurely lunches and daydreams of lowering his golf handicap. His coach, Art Shell, never speaks with him.

“Well, he says ‘Hi,’ ” the player confessed, “but it’s not like I’m going to go up and ask him about some blocking scheme. I’ve got friends, they ask me about the offense and defense, and I don’t have a clue. I really don’t.”

The Raiders tell Jeff Jaeger to just kick, baby, and this year the offense would be offensive without him. His foot is the difference between a record of 3-2 and, say, 1-4.

On a team where points are precious and few, the Raiders have turned their hopes to Jaeger, a man who has not seen this week’s game plan and isn’t afraid to admit it.

“I’ve seen (former Ram kicker Mike) Lansford on ESPN,” Jaeger said, “and he’s talking about offense and defense. Maybe he knows about it, but I sure don’t. I’d get on there and it would be like, ‘Let’s send Willie (Gault) long.’ That’s about it. I really don’t understand all that stuff.”

Jaeger understands the part about the ball sailing straight through the uprights. If it doesn’t go through, he knows that’s bad. So far, Jaeger has made 12 of 13 field-goal attempts this season.

That’s good.

Only Chip Lohmiller of the Washington Redskins has made as many field goals. Lohmiller has a lead over Jaeger on extra points, 19 to six, which explains the differences between the offenses.

Jaeger has more field goals than Morten Andersen of the New Orleans Saints, who paid $4,000 for his kicking shoe.

Where would the Raiders be without Jaeger? Fourth place. He kicked three field goals against the Denver Broncos on Sept. 8, the difference in a 16-13 victory. Last week against the San Francisco 49ers, Jaeger was the Raider offense, making four field goals without a miss in a 12-6 victory. Three of Jaeger’s kicks were beyond 40 yards.

Single-footedly, Jaeger has outscored the rest of the Raider offense, 42-36.

Jaeger boasts of no great secrets for his success. He is not superstitious and dislikes the stereotype of kickers being somewhat neurotic.

Although Jaeger has known a few who fit that description.

“Novo Bojovic,” Jaeger said, recalling the journeyman kicker. “I remember seeing him kick a game for the Cardinals. And I remember reading in the papers, him saying he was the best kicker of all time. He wore a glove with garlic in it. When I came out here for my tryout (in 1988), there were about 11 or 12 guys here. I got out at the airport, I was waiting on the curb waiting for someone to pick me up. I look up and there’s this guy, about 20 feet away, just talking to himself. And he’s practicing swinging with his leg. And it was him. I didn’t know it was him until later, we got in the same car and came over, but I was looking at him saying, ‘This guy’s got to be a kicker.’ It was just weird. I don’t do all that stuff. I really go out of my way to be as normal as possible.”

Bojovic liked garlic in his glove. Andersen has that $4,000 shoe. Jaeger, by contrast, uses the pair of shoes team equipment man Dick Romanski tossed him. Nothing thought-provoking there.

While kicking for the Cleveland Browns earlier in his career, Jaeger used a shoe he purchased in a thrift shop.

“I got it in a bargain barrel for 12 bucks,” Jaeger said. “I’m saving it for when I have a real bad streak.”

Jaeger kicked at the University of Washington and was a third-round draft choice in 1987 of the Browns, who needed a replacement for injured Matt Bahr.

Jaeger, then teamed with current holder Jeff Gossett, had made eight of 10 field goals before Gossett was replaced by backup quarterback Gary Danielson.

“We didn’t work well at all,” Jaeger said.

When Bahr returned from his injury, Jaeger was out. He suffered a foot injury the next season and spent the 1988 season on injured reserve.

When the Browns left Jaeger unprotected as a Plan B free agent, he signed with the Raiders, where he was reunited with holder and punter Gossett, who had joined the team the previous season.

Jaeger credits Gossett and special teams coach, Steve Ortmayer, with his development.

In Cleveland, the special teams coach was Coach Marty Schottenheimer’s brother, Kurt, who made Jaeger sit through practices and break down film of his kicking mechanics.

“How much can you study about kicking?” Jaeger asked. “You either can or you can’t.”

Ortmayer took a different approach. Jaeger and Gossett aren’t required much at practice. They spend the bulk of their time in the weight room, working on the stair-stepper.

“They have an awful lot of time to either stand around or sit around,” Ortmayer said. “And most kickers and punters end up kicking themselves to oblivion. It’s a long season.”

Ortmayer says his kickers are better served in the weight room.

“The legs are the whole key,” he said. “Leg conditioning, but not the number of pops. You’ve got a certain number of pops during a given year. You don’t want to use them all on the practice field.”

Ortmayer is into simplification: See ball, kick ball.

“Either you’re hitting them straight or you’re not,” Jaeger said. “That’s really helped me a lot. I remember my first year, it’s like I would get all technical about it.”

Kickers, of course, are always a bad streak away from unemployment. Shell recently offered Jaeger what seemed the ultimate compliment.

“We showed our confidence in him by not bringing a kicker into camp,” Shell said.

Jaeger rolled his eyes.

“To a point, I can see it’s a show of confidence,” Jaeger said. “But I know they (other kickers) are just a phone call away. If I have two games in a row that I blow it, they’ll be trying guys out. That’s just the nature of the business.”

For now, though, kicking is the greatest job.

“When it’s going good,” Jaeger said, “you can’t beat it.”