Kicking His Way to Stardom : Raiders’ Jaeger Is Earning a Place Among NFL’s Elite

The crowd was screaming.

The Raiders were driving.

And on the sideline, Jeff Jaeger was thinking.

Thinking about which hash mark he’d like to kick from, which yard line he’d ideally like to set up on, which way the wind was blowing.

Thinking about the advantages of kicking into the closed end of the Coliseum where the Raiders were headed.

It was overtime last Sunday and the Raiders, needing a victory to advance to the playoffs, were tied with the Denver Broncos.

Jaeger got his wish in terms of the end he was facing, the hash mark, the yard line and the angle into the wind.

And he responded with a 47-yard field goal that gave the Raiders a 33-30 victory and lifted them into postseason play.

But did all that thinking really matter? There was hardly a breeze late Sunday at the Coliseum. And Jaeger has kicked into the other end, from longer distances and from the other hash mark.

So aren’t all those elements more of a factor in the mind than on the field?

“Yeah,” Jaeger conceded, “if you put a good swing on the ball, unless there’s a hurricane, you’re going to make it. But by thinking about (all the other factors), it takes the nerves away.”

Nerves? Jaeger?

If ever a kicker had a right to exude self-confidence, it is Jaeger. In his seventh NFL season and his fifth with the Raiders, Jaeger, 29, has had unprecedented success. He has kicked 35 field goals to tie the all-time NFL record. He has scored 132 points to lead the NFL and set a Raider record. He kicked four field goals in a game three times. And he made 11 field-goal attempts in a row at one point.

But this is a position where confidence must be renewed on every snap. If a lineman misses a block, it may not be noticed by the average fan. If a receiver drops a ball, he’s usually going to get a chance to redeem himself on the next play or soon after.

The kicker, however, is out there alone in the spotlight for better or worse. If he misses, he may not get a chance at redemption for another week.

“You’re not as good as your last kick,” said Steve Ortmayer, the special teams coach. “You’re as good as your next kick.”

Even in this year of years for Jaeger, there was a low moment. In a 16-10 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, he missed four field-goal attempts. All the kicks veered to the left, but not by much.

Jaeger took it hard.

“I was down,” he said. “Who wouldn’t be? I just told myself, ‘Heck, I’ve been around long enough and I am a good kicker.’ I did not change anything.

“That thought is there, and I’ve done that before when I haven’t been kicking well. But I think you just dig yourself a deeper hole. That has been the case for me. I’ve learned not to mess around.”

Nor does Jaeger ever want the Raiders to mess around with his two partners in the kicking game, long snapper Dan Turk and holder Jeff Gossett.

“I can’t overemphasize how much Jeff (Jaeger) depends on those two,” Ortmayer said.

Said Jaeger: “Danny puts it there every time with a little extra zip on it that allows me a fraction of a second longer. And Jeff always gets it down with the laces right.”

With all his success this season, however, Jaeger did not make the Pro Bowl.

“It’s ludicrous,” Ortmayer said. “But with the fans now involved, who knows where the votes came from.”

Jaeger admits he was disappointed.

“It was frustrating,” he said. “That’s what everybody points toward. The recognition. Everybody wants that. But you’ve got to get over it. What good does it do to sit and pout about it?”

Ortmayer is outraged because he feels Jaeger’s talent goes beyond field-goal kicking.

“He is one of the best in the league at kickoffs as well,” Ortmayer said. “A lot of guys can kick field goals, but there aren’t very many who can also kick off like that. That’s really important to us.”

Another area that sometimes gets overlooked is the extra point.

Take last Sunday for example. Jeff Hostetler connected with Alexander Wright on a four-yard touchdown pass on the final play of regulation, pulling the Raiders even with the Broncos.

But not really.

The score was 30-29 with the conversion kick still to come. While the Coliseum crowd was busy celebrating, Jaeger knew the season would be lost unless he converted the kick.

“It’s not a gimmee,” Jaeger said. “I’m telling them, ‘OK, everybody pay attention. Nobody jump offside. Nobody hold.’ ”

Nobody did and Jaeger made the kick, making it look easy. But it never is, even for the best of kickers.