Punter Begging For Shot Former Cfl Standout Ready To Replace Tuten In Seattle

Thanks to the salary cap, pro punters feel like dogs. Actually, Josh Miller’s dog has it better than he does.

While Miller slaves away punting during an unusually hot Northwest week, Dalton roams a 5-acre camp near a cool lake in Maryland. While Miller wonders whether his chance to make the Seahawks is legit - a chance dependent on whether the Seahawks re-sign Pro Bowler Rick Tuten, Dalton lives the high life.

“I just sent him on a little vacation,” Miller said. “he’s in a camp with other dogs. He’s best friends with one. I write him. He writes back that the food stinks. He’s doing all right. Hopefully in a couple of months, I hope I can send for him.”

If punters only had it so good.

This year, general managers put punters at the back of the payroll, meaning very few received significant pay increases. Longtime punters such as Rich Camarillo, Reggie Roby, Tommy Barnhardt, Bryan Wagner and others were cut and forced to sign with othr teams for less money. Tuten, perhaps the league’s most consistent punter over the past four seasons, waited Tuedsday while the Seahawks decided whether to give him a revised contract offer from the old three-year, $2.1 million proposal.

Coach Dennis Erickson wants Tuten back. Finances are so tight because of the salary cap that finding acceptable numbers takes days.

Miller understands such indignities. He’s been the Canadian Football League’s best punter the past two season. Translated into Amercian dollars, his punting success still means he make only a little more than the CFL minimum of $35,000 but his two-year stay in Baltimore was at an end. The Stallions moved to Montreal.

“I always wanted to play in the NFL,” Miller said. “I don’t remember ever saying, ‘I want to play in the CFL.”’

It’s a different game in the CFL. There, punters can kick the ball away without a conscience. Returners can’t fair catch, so the Millers of the CFL can kick the ball as far and as long as they want. Given the wide-open field, Miller averaged 42.9 and 45.3 yards during his two CFL seasons.

Tuten averaged 45 years a kick in the Nfl, a league that rushes punters, gives returners the luxury of fair catching the ball and hires coaches to handle only the special teams.

“Rick Tuten is a hell of a punter,” Miller said. “He’s a Pro Bowler. Who knows? He could come back any day now. It’s a kicker’s job to get shuffled from team to team. It’s like a revolving door. A lot of guys come and go from both leagues.”

Humility slapped Miller across the face before the felt comfortable in an NFL uniform. The Green Bay Packers brought him to training camp in 1993. Miller entered camp confident. In college, he was a kicking star at Scottsdale Community College and the University of Arizona. Though he didn’t have a big head, he had a big stomach.

“I was fat,” the 6-foot-3, 215-pound Miller said. “I was at 230 pounds. I was built like a pear.”

The Packers cut him during the first week of training camp, ironically on his July 14 birthday.

“That was a hell of a present,” he said.

What followed was worse. No other team offered him a job for four months. He tried for acting and broadcasting jobs until the late fall when a coaching friend offered him a developmental spot with Baltimore.

“The coach said he had an All-American punter who didn’ know what he was doing with his life,” Miller said. “I brought a bag of clothes and my golf clubs. I news they had a number of punters there, so I just figured I’d push somebody. I figured at least I’m going to play some nice courses.”

Miller did well enough late that season to earn a three-year contract in 1994.

This off-season the Seahawks didn’t know if Tuten would return. Special teams coach Dave Arnold watched tapes of the left-footed kicker and endorsed his signing. The Seahawks bought out the final year of Miller’s CFL contract, gave him a $17,500 signing bonus, a two-year contract and a chance for an NFL job - if Tuten doesn’t come back. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo