Report: New Orleans Saints hope to retain kicker Kai Forbath
The New Orleans Saints are hoping to keep kicker Kai Forbath in the Big Easy, according to a report.
Kai Forbath, who the New Orleans Saints signed on in the middle of the 2015 season after cutting Zach Hocker, is set to become an unrestricted free agent. But the Black and Gold want to keep him around, The New Orleans Advocate reports.
Forbath is 84.1 percent accurate on field goals (69 of 82) since taking his talents to the NFL in 2011 and becoming the starting kicker for the Washington Redskins in 2012. He was just 69.2 percent accurate for the New Orleans Saints in 2015, making 9 of 13 attempts and missing an extra point.
If they do reach a new agreement with Forbath, the New Orleans Saints can still bring in a young kicker to compete at a position where the team has been nothing more than average over the last decade.
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"“A total of 10 different kickers have come through the Saints organization on their active roster from 2006-2015, and that’s not counting the changes made when going back to players like John Carney and Garrett Hartley. We’re also not counting battles that had the likes of Dustin Hopkins and Derek Dimke.” – John Hendrix"
The kicker position should not be overlooked. Kickers often times can be the difference between a win or a loss, whether it’s a meaningless preseason contest, or the annual ‘Big Game’ we like to call the Super Bowl.
In the New Orleans Saints’ case, a kicker was the difference in getting the club to their first and only Super Bowl when Garrett Hartley drilled a 40-yard game-winner to seal an NFC Championship title in overtime on the evening of January 24, 2010.
Whatever the Saints decide to do at the kicker position this offseason, it must be the right decision. After a decade of inconsistency, shouldn’t it be time to find a franchise foot? The free agency period gets underway March 9. We’ll see if New Orleans retains Kai Forbath and/or if they look somewhere else, including the NFL Draft.