I genuinely did not expect Roberto Aguayo to get cut that fast.

I actually thought Aguayo would be fine. First year jitters, time to settle in, get accustomed to everything, I figured he’d be fine. He’d still end up getting ripped apart on the internet for every miss, but he wouldn’t be the worst kicker in the league, he’d probably be around the bottom 3rd. Instead, he misses an extra point and poof: he’s gone. Just like that. Now he’s stuck in the den of inadequacy that is the Chicago Bears. Good luck, Roberto!

I figured he’d at the very least make it to the final round of cuts, even if he sucked. This feels remarkably early to pull a trigger on a guy. It seems like the Bucs can’t stop jumping the gun on Roberto. What’s the harm in letting him stick around till cuts? See if he can pull himself together in his next few weeks, and if not then keep Folk and let Aguayo go. If the quick pickup by the Bears is anything to go by, the Bucs had to know he would have been fine.

(Quick aside about the Bears: Roberto is now on the same team as Connor Barth, who was the kicker originally cut by the Bears to make room for Aguayo. So this proves very interesting. Also, I read a few rumors around last year’s draft that seemed to suggest one of the reasons the Bucs traded up for Roberto was to get ahead of the Bears, who supposedly liked him. So maybe, after all this time, the Bears got their man? Plus they made the Bucs look like idiots in the process?)

I feel bad for the dude. I doubt the same expectations would be there if he was drafted in the 4th or lower, like a kicker should be. Of course if he was drafted then and played just as bad, maybe he’d still get cut and we’d just care less. I certainly wouldn’t be making comics about a 5th round kicker who didn’t do anything. But a 2nd round hype kicker? That’s hilarious! At this point he’s probably the most featured kicker in the comic, and I’ve drawn what, 4 comics about him?

I guess good on the Bucs for recognizing they made an oopsie drafting a kicker too high. I don’t think anyone who defended the pick at the time can stand by it at this point. Kickers just aren’t inherently valuable enough to draft that high. Even if Roberto Aguayo had panned out and become great, he still never would have been worth a 2nd round trade up simply due to the value of the position relative to others in the draft. There isn’t much range between the best kicker and the worst kicker. There is a huge range between the best QB and the worst, or the best Left Tackle and the worst, and in the second round your chances of nailing one of those QBs or LTs on the high end of their spectrum is still reasonably high. Don’t waste that pick on a position that, even if they are great, can’t make as big a difference at their position as one of those other positions can. Wait till the later rounds, when getting a guaranteed player is very low, because then drafting a kicker will get you something of decent value even if it’s not a good kicker. Roberto Aguayo, for all his misses, still won that Panthers game for the Bucs. Even bad kickers get you something, and good kickers are just…good kickers.

It doesn’t say much for the value of kickers if after one bad season you are more than willing to jettison a 2nd round draft pick that you traded up for. If not giving a kicker more than a single season (and he wasn’t historically awful as far as I can tell) is perfectly acceptable, it’s not a position you need to be spending 2nd round picks on.