KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Anyone who's ever had the embarrassment
of getting chewed out in front of co-workers can take heart from
Lawrence Tynes, Kansas City's pokerfaced, never-say-die
placekicker.
Just a couple of months after coach Dick Vermeil publicly
berated him, Tynes is the AFC special teams player of the week. He
kicked three field goals in Kansas City's 30-20 victory at Miami
last Friday and seems to be reaching a new level -- crossing a
barrier, as Vermeil likes to say.
But he seemed headed for unemployment after an exhibition game
against Arizona, consigned to that inglorious heap of would-be
kickers who had their chance at the big time and blew it. Tynes
misfired on a couple of makable field goal attempts, and a
disgusted Vermeil told reporters, "He's in the tank."
"You don't do that in the National Football League," Vermeil
snorted.
Notorious for not getting along with kickers, Vermeil made it
clear he would be casting a wide net for potential replacements for
the NFL's first Scottish-born player.
He even associated Tynes and struggling kickers to a sickness.
"I've been through this so many times it seems like I have that
disease, that I should know how to handle it by now," he said.
Of course, everyone hurried to the locker room to get a reaction
from Tynes.
Instead of blowing up and letting off steam, he gritted his
teeth and went back to work, confident he knew what the problem
was. Turns out he was right.
He and rookie punter Dustin Colquitt had not yet learned to work
together on the delicate split-timing required between a kicker and
holder.
"I knew and I think most of the people in this organization
knew it wasn't just me," Tynes said. "We had an operational
thing. I knew we were going to get through it. It wasn't something
that was insurmountable."
For the season, Tynes has converted 12 of 14 field goals and
made every one of his 15 PATs. Against the Dolphins, he scored all
six of the Chiefs' fourth-quarter points, including career-long
field goals of 51 and 52 yards. He's just the second kicker in
Chiefs history to have two field goals of 50 yards or longer in the
same game.
"I think every kicker goes through some real lows in his
career, especially getting started," Vermeil said. "Sometimes he
goes through three or four periods within the first couple of
years. The good ones I've been around go through a barrier. When
they break through that barrier, they start becoming what they had
the ability to be all along."
Perhaps that barrier for Tynes was in Miami.
"I'd like to believe that Lawrence went through that barrier
the other night. He kicked himself through it. He's missed a couple
and he'll probably miss a couple of more. That's just the nature of
that position," Vermeil said.
"But I do believe that because he has been patient and we have
been patient and we've stayed together in appreciating his talent,
that eventually he'll ascend to be one of the best kickers in the
league."
Vermeil is also not apologizing for publicly berating him.
"I deal as honestly as I possibly can with players," he said.
"So I'm very hard to misunderstand. Either you're doing it
wonderfully or you're doing it pretty good, not quite good enough
or you're in the tank. I think people in the long run, though
sometimes it hurts feelings a little bit, they know where I'm
coming from. They know I care. They know I appreciate what they're
going through.
"But sooner or later you've got to do what you're paid to do.
And right now, he's doing what he's paid to do very well."
Tynes, who labored for three seasons in Europe and Canada before
finally winning a spot with the Chiefs on his third try, says a
kicker has to learn to roll with the punches.
"This job wasn't handed to me. I worked my tail off to get
it," he said.
"It's an up-and-down league. You win some, you lose some. You
make some kicks, you miss some. I tend to keep an even mind and try
to stay on a level base. You'll go crazy if you keep beating
yourself down if you miss a kick."