JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Jacksonville’s recent kicking situation can be summed up like this: two Wrights and more than a dozen wrongs.
The Jaguars are now counting on the youngest kicker ever drafted, Cam Little of Arkansas, to stop a revolving door and bring stability to a position that has been one of the league’s most tumultuous over the past four years.
Jacksonville employed a whopping 16 kickers, including unrelated Brandon and Matthew Wright, between the start of the pandemic and selecting Little in the sixth round of last week's NFL draft. It’s a head-shaking stretch that spans numerous injuries, several one-week tryouts and a few downright debacles.
And despite ranking 31st in the NFL in field-goal rate over that four-year span — one of just two teams under 80% — the Jaguars weren't planning to choose Little until Denver's Wil Lutz reneged on a three-year agreement in the opening hours of free agency.
Lutz's about-face prompted general manager Trent Baalke and coach Doug Pederson to draft the franchise's first kicker since Josh Scobee in 2004.
“It’s a great opportunity for him,” Pederson said. “It’ll be exciting to get him in here and see what he can do.”
The Jaguars have gotten a look at more than their share of kickers since veteran Josh Lambo injured a hip in Week 2 of the 2020 season. They set an NFL record that year for kickers used in a single season after turning to Brandon Wright, Aldrick Rosas, Stephen Hauschka, Jon Brown and Chase McLaughlin.
Lambo, the NFL’s most accurate kicker between 2017 and 2020, reclaimed the job in 2021 under new coach Urban Meyer. But Lambo missed five kicks in Jacksonville’s first three games and suddenly had confidence issues.
Baalke and Meyer cut Lambo three weeks later, after Matthew Wright made two field goals from beyond 50 yards to beat Miami in London and end the NFL’s longest losing streak (20 games) in 44 years.
Lambo resurfaced when he accused Meyer of kicking him during practice months earlier and belittling him in front of teammates. He sued the franchise for emotional stress and reputational harm, but the case was eventually dismissed.
Baalke and Pederson dumped Wright in 2022 and opened camp with rookie Andrew Mevis competing with Ryan Santoso for the job. Neither panned out.
Mevis missed so badly on Day 4 that he hit former Dallas Cowboys coach Dave Campo, who was standing nowhere near the goalposts, in the shoulder. He was cut hours later. And Santoso’s shot ended after he misfired on three of four attempts from beyond 50 yards in the preseason.
James McCourt and Elliott Fry also got brief looks before Jacksonville claimed Riley Patterson off waivers days before the opener.
Patterson lasted less than a year. The team wanted a stronger leg and scooped up veteran Brandon McManus when Denver dumped him last spring. McManus' arrival seemed as if he would end the team's kicking carousel.
He set a franchise record by making 20 in a row over a two-month span. But then he missed five of six down the stretch as the Jags coughed up the AFC South and a playoff berth that seemed like a lock in late November.
Little could help everyone forget those woes. The 20-year-old Oklahoman was the third kicker drafted in the sixth round, following Alabama’s Will Reichard (Minnesota) and Stanford’s Joshua Karty (Los Angeles Rams).
“I’m going to be honest: I killed the process,” Little said confidently. “I did every single workout I had with every coach that was drafting a guy. I absolutely smashed. I did not have one bad day in this whole process.
“Jacksonville saw something in me that they maybe didn’t see in the other guys."
Little hit 53 of 64 attempts in college and all 129 extra points. He nailed the game-winner in overtime at LSU as a freshman and danced “the Griddy” afterward. He delivered on four of five attempts at nearby Florida last year, including a 44-yarder in the final minute to force overtime, and helped Arkansas notch its first victory in Gainesville.
Those makes are atop his list of college accomplishments. Now he's onto the pros, with new kickoff rules to learn and more pressure-filled moments ahead. And maybe, just maybe, he's the solution to Jacksonville’s kicking chaos.
“The youngest (NFL) kicker ever, it’s insane to me,” he said. “It’s something that I’m excited about. It’s something that I put a lot of hard work into. ... I promise you that they will not regret that. The city of Jacksonville will not regret that pick.”
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FILE - Arkansas kicker Cameron Little poses for a portrait at the NFL football Combine, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Indianapolis. The Jacksonville Jaguars are now counting on the youngest kicker ever drafted, Cam Little of Arkansas, to stop a revolving door and bring stability to a position that has been one of the league’s most tumultuous over the last four years. (Doug Benc/AP Images for the NFL)
FILE - Arkansas kicker Cameron Little runs a drill at the NFL football scouting combine, Sunday, March 3, 2024, in Indianapolis. The Jacksonville Jaguars are now counting on the youngest kicker ever drafted, Cam Little of Arkansas, to stop a revolving door and bring stability to a position that has been one of the league’s most tumultuous over the last four years. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico was seriously wounded in an apparent assassination attempt just weeks before a Europe-wide election that has been deeply divisive. He was shot multiple times in an attack in the town of Handlova that authorities described as politically motivated, although they said the suspect did not belong to any political groups.
Here’s a global look at other notable assassinations and assassination attempts during the 21st century:
— Sept. 1, 2022: Argentina's then-Vice President Cristina Fernández is targeted by a man who reportedly aimed a handgun at point-blank range toward the politician in what government ministers characterize as an assassination attempt.
— July 8, 2022: Japanese former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is assassinated by a gunman who opened fire on him as he delivered a campaign speech on a street in western Japan.
— Nov. 6, 2021: Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survives an assassination attempt when two armed drones target his residence in Baghdad's Green Zone area. While al-Kadhimi is uninjured, seven of his security guards are injured in the attack.
— Oct. 15, 2021: British lawmaker David Amess is stabbed to death by an Islamic State supporter while meeting with voters.
— July 7, 2021: Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is assassinated by gunmen in an overnight raid on his Port-au-Prince home. His widow, Martine, ex-prime minister Claude Joseph and the former chief of Haiti’s National Police, Léon Charles, among others, are indicted in his killing in February 2024.
— April 20, 2021: Chad President Idriss Deby Itno is killed while battling rebels in the north. Hours earlier he had been declared the winner of an election that would have given him another six years in power.
— Aug. 4, 2018: Drones armed with explosives detonate near Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in an apparent assassination attempt while he is delivering a speech to hundreds of soldiers being broadcast live on television. Six people are later arrested in connection with the attack.
— Dec. 19, 2016: Russia’s ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is shot dead by a Turkish policeman shouting condemnation of Russia’s military role in Syria, in front of a shocked gathering at a photo exhibit. The gunman was later killed in a shootout with police.
— July 15, 2016: A group of Turkish soldiers using tanks, warplanes and helicopters launch a plot to overthrow Turkey's president and government. The coup attempt fails. One year later, 40 people are sentenced to life in prison after being convicted on charges that include attempting to kill President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
— June 16, 2016: British lawmaker Jo Cox is shot and stabbed to death by a far-right supporter in the English village of Birstall, part of her constituency.
— Feb. 6, 2013: Tunisian left-wing opposition leader Chokri Belaid is fatally shot outside his Tunis home. His killing — followed six months later by that of another left-wing leader, Mohammed Brahmi — plunged Tunisia into political chaos. Four people are sentenced to death and two others to life in prison in March 2024 for their roles in his death.
— Oct. 20, 2011: Longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is hunted and summarily killed by insurgents after being toppled in a NATO-backed uprising.
— Jan. 8, 2011: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords survives an assassination attempt after being shot by a man in an Arizona grocery store parking lot while meeting with constituents. Giffords' injuries are so significant that she has to re-learn how to walk and talk. The attack kills six other people and wounds 11 more.
— March 2, 2009: Guinea-Bissau President Joao Bernardo Vieira is killed by renegade soldiers in his palace, hours after a bomb blast killed his rival in the West African nation.
— December 27, 2007: Benazir Bhutto, the first female prime minister in a Muslim-majority country as well as Pakistan’s second nationally elected prime minister, is shot at and then fatally attacked by a suicide bomber at a political rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
— Feb. 14, 2005: Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is killed by a suicide truck bomb on a seaside boulevard in Beirut. Another 21 people die and 226 are wounded in the attack, which is seen by many in Lebanon as the work of neighboring Syria.
— March 12, 2003: Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic is shot dead in front of the Serbian government headquarters in Belgrade. He was a key leader of the revolt that toppled former President Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000. Twelve people are later convicted in connection with the killing, which was carried out to halt his pro-Western reforms, according to a Serbian court ruling.
— July 2, 2002: French President Jacques Chirac survives an assassination attempt by a far-right right supporter who shoots at him and misses during Bastille Day celebrations on Paris' Champs-Elysees. Chirac is uninjured.
— May 6, 2002: Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is gunned down in a northern Netherlands city, days before a general election in which he was a candidate, by an animal rights activist.
— June 1, 2001: Nepal’s King Birendra is killed when his son, Crown Prince Dipendra, opens fire on his family in the royal palace. The dead include Queen Aiswarya, a prince and five others. Officials said the shooting followed a dispute over the prince’s marriage.
— Jan. 18, 2001: Congo President Laurent Kabila is assassinated in the presidential palace in the capital, Kinshasa, by one of his bodyguards, who is killed minutes later by security forces.
FILE - Supporters of Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernandez gather in Plaza de Mayo square the day after a person pointed a gun at her outside her home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
FILE - A police investigator works in a van at the scene where a person pointed a gun at Argentina's Vice President Cristina Fernandez outside her home in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Sept. 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)
FILE - People pray at a makeshift memorial at the scene where former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot during an election campaign in Nara, western Japan on July 8, 2022. Abe was assassinated by a gunman who opened fire on him as he delivered a campaign speech on a street. (Kyodo News via AP, File)
Rescue workers wheel Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot and injured, to a hospital in the town of Banska Bystrica, central Slovakia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. (Jan Kroslak/TASR via AP)
Police arrest a man after Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot and injured following the cabinet's away-from-home session in the town of Handlova, Slovakia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Fico is in life-threatening condition after being wounded in a shooting Wednesday afternoon, according to his Facebook profile. (Radovan Stoklasa/TASR via AP)
FILE - Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico speaks during a press conference with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the Carmelite Monastery in Budapest, Hungary, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. Slovakia's populist Prime Minister Robert Fico was wounded in a shooting Wednesday May 15, 2024 and taken to hospital. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos, File)
