‘Our guy’s pretty good’

SEATTLE – Josh Brown places his right toe on the ground exactly where he wants the ball held and the process begins.

He takes three steps backward, two to the left and waits. The distance is always the same, his steps calibrated by years of practice.

Repetition and routine. The approach Brown followed playing 8-man football at an Oklahoma high school is the same he used to kick four game-winning field goals for the Seahawks this season. Repetition and routine. It’s how a kicker stands up to the moment when the outcome of a game is not so much in his hands as on his foot.

The job is compulsive and it is crucial. Of the first 192 games played in the NFL this season, 52 were decided by three points or fewer. Coaches spend a week constructing a game plan, commentators spend three hours discussing trap blocks and seven-step drops, and two teams full of 300-pounders trade body blows for four quarters only to have a small player with a big foot come out to decide everything. That reality has elevated the importance of the position.

Soccer matches get decided by shootouts and basketball games often come down to free throws, but a game-winning field goal is different. It’s performed by a specialist.

“It’s a love-hate relationship,” Seattle linebacker Lofa Tatupu said. “You love to have them because they win games for you. Josh has won four for us … but you hate it when you’re out there, and he’s over there sipping a Gatorade, helmet on the ground, visor on.”

Kickers sweat, too, only it’s from anxiety, not exhaustion. The ball isn’t the only thing they must keep straight. They’ve got to keep their mind in line, too. When Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren discusses kickers, he often puts his index finger next to his temple and swirls it. You know, cuckoo.

But while he might not understand his kickers, he doesn’t underestimate the importance.

“In this day and age, it’s such an unbelievably important guy to your football team,” Holmgren said. “And when you have one that’s not wacky, you really have something going.

“And our guy’s pretty good.”

Ready, aim, kick

Norm Johnson stood by the Gatorade container when Chuck Knox called for the Seahawks’ field-goal unit.

It was 1983 and the Seahawks were playing the Kansas City Chiefs at the Kingdome. The game was in overtime, Seattle driving toward what Johnson was sure would be the game-winning touchdown. Johnson remembered wondering whether a team had to kick an extra point if it scored.

“I’m standing on my tippy-toes looking over this group of people running onto the field,” Johnson recalled.

It looked like the field-goal unit, but it was only third down. Johnson approached the coach to ask if he had just called for a kick, and Knox bellowed for him to get in there.

“So I run in there, clock’s running down,” Johnson said. “We kick it, we win.”

Not only must the kicker go from sideline to center stage at a moment’s notice, but he must do it without being blinded by the spotlight. These are the moments when the routine acts as a crutch. It helps bear the weight of the moment.

“Every time you step on the field as a place-kicker, you need to try to do everything the same way,” said Johnson, who kicked for Seattle from 1982 to ‘90.

Sign language

The tattoo on Brown’s right foot is a Chinese character that translates to power.

At least that’s what he was told. He would like to say he spent all sorts of time researching it, and it was something he had thought about for a long time. The truth?

“I was bored on a Sunday afternoon in college.”

The character was on the wall of the tattoo shop he went to in Nebraska, but don’t read too much into the symbolism.

“I don’t try to label it or do anything,” Brown said. “I’ve seen some guys who put a dollar bill in their sock because they’re money or whatever. Some of that stuff is a little silly. I didn’t do it to mean anything. I didn’t tell anybody about it. I just did it because I wanted one.”

The confidence, though, doesn’t get lost in translation. It’s an essential ingredient.

“Kicking a game-winner is very different for whatever reason,” said Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who once held for kicks in Green Bay. “It’s like making a big putt. A birdie putt is tougher than a bogey putt.”

Golf is the most common analogy for kickers. Misses are hooks or shanks. A kicker gets under a ball that comes up short and he tops a ball that comes off low.

A kicker wants his leg as straight as the shaft of a driver when he makes contact with the ball, knee locked and foot extended. Brown wants the ball held so he can’t see the laces.

But contact is only the final step in a process that starts much earlier. It’s more than a habit and not as superstitious as a ritual, and the most important factor in a game-winning kick is the steps that lead up to it.

“You’ve got to have the mental makeup,” Hasselbeck said. “You’ve got to go out and kick it like you’re the only guy out on the field.”