Jaime Stein
CFL.ca
Noel Prefontaine was never a kicker. He was a football player who happened to kick. Regularly, he would hustle down field to recover a punt or throw a bone crushing hit on a returner. This made him a fan favourite in Toronto, but also drew the concern of head coach Michael ‘Pinball’ Clemons.
As a non-import kicker and punter Prefontaine is one of the most valuable players in the league. That was exactly why Clemons would cringe when his star kicker put himself in the way of danger.
“I don’t ever recall getting hurt from hitting somebody or tackling somebody,” said Prefontaine.
His only serious injury was a result of getting hit on a blocked punt. Prefontaine suffered a concussion in the first game of the 2007 season against the BC Lions. The injury was a minor setback, but ultimately it didn’t alter his style of play.
“I took a two year hiatus with the concussions, but this year I’ve been going back to what I started. When I came into the league in ’98 a lot of the kickers were older guys and not too many kickers were getting involved.”
Prefontaine appears to have spawned a new generation of kickers. In the past couple of season the CFL has seen an emergence of kickers that moonlight as linebackers once the ball sets sail into the air.
Unfortunately for Mike Renaud, Winnipeg’s feisty punter, his aggression led to an early exit on Monday night when he collided with Hamilton returner Terry Caulley. Renaud was seen on crutches after the game and is now out with what is being described as a bruised knee although reports say the injury could be worse.
“When you have a kicker getting involved it applies pressure,” explains Prefontaine. “I think more teams want their kickers to be a little more involved, but stay safe at the same time. It’s one thing to go out there and contribute from a coverage standpoint, but your number one priority is to kick the football.”
A punter charging downfield is a high risk, high reward play. In the CFL a punter can recover his kick so a sleepy returner has to account for the 12th man on the field or risk being embarrassed by turning over the ball. Of course, the risky end of the deal is the threat of injury which can happen in the blink of an eye.
Take Saskatchewan’s Jamie Boreham for example. He put himself in the running for CFL hit of the year following his submarine job on Ryan Grice-Mullen in Week 14.
Of course, Boreham holds an advantage over the average kicker. He was a safety in university so he has been trained in the art of tackling. However, Boreham’s huge hit has come back to haunt the fifth year punter. He may be out for the remainder of the season due to injury.
Toronto’s Justin Medlock is new to the Canadian game. He, too, was impressed by Boreham’s hit. But he was also cautious about the implications of colliding with a returner moving at full speed.
“It was crazy,” said Medlock, who watched the play on TSN. “He’s helping out the team by making plays, but at the same time it’s a risky thing.”
This aspect of the kicking game has been a big adjustment for Medlock throughout his freshman season with the Argonauts. “It’s so hard to get down there and not watch your ball,” said the UCLA product. “Even when I miss a field goal I’m in shock. I’m not thinking that I need to get down field.”
During the Argos Grey Cup season in 2004 the team was known for its great special teams unit. Prefontaine feels that part of the unit’s success was his ability to close a coverage gap and force the returner to go elsewhere on the field. It provided his teammates with better opportunities to make plays.
“You can contribute as a coverage guy without having to lay a finger on anybody,” he explained, but cautioned that some of the younger kickers run around wildly and may not understand the strategy behind the special teams game.
Like Boreham, Montreal’s Damon Duval played safety in a previous era. He suited up on defence for Chattanooga Centre High School in Tennessee where he honed his tackling technique.
“I promise you will never see me do a kicker dive,” Duval told The Canadian Press. “I remember being little and watching the NFL and the guy’s going that way and they’re diving this way. I said that will never be me. And up here, with the bigger field, we have to get down and make tackles and do things.”
The Alouettes kicker made three special team tackles in Week 14 against the Argonauts. That’s a great day at the office for your average special teams player. For a kicker, however, that makes a coach cringe.
“It’s not exciting to see him make those plays, but he’s a football player, he’s a highly competitive guy,” said Alouettes’ head coach Marc Trestman. “But hopefully we can make some corrections to take care of some of that.”
So is this next generation of kickers going too far?
“I don’t think so,” said Prefontaine who also has some experience playing safety at El Camino High School in San Diego. “I think it really depends on who it is. Duval is making a ton of tackles and he is not getting hurt. I thought Renaud was making some good hits, too. Football players get hurt. That’s the bottom line.”
Prefontaine is steadfast in his belief that tackling and blocking are two crucial aspects of the game and that all players on the field should be able to accomplish both tasks. He is also a student of the game, rhyming off the tendencies of returners from Bashir Levingston to Ian Smart to Dominique Dorsey.
It is clear that there is more to a kicker’s participation in the play than simply throwing his body in the way of the ball carrier.
“I would take a guy that is going to contribute at that position over a guy that is just going to kick the ball and stand there. But you have to be smart, too, and remember your priority is to kick the football.”
So how has the rebranding of the kicker turned out?
“To me it was about trying to change the stereotype of the kicker,” adds Prefontaine. “That was my main focus and one of my main priorities was trying to create a new reputation. The bad thing about it is that you are seeing kickers going down and are not able to kick anymore.”
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