There was a little bit of Browns legend Lou Groza in Adam Vinatieri
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With room for just four, who would be on the Mount Rushmore of NFL kickers?
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A case can be made for Browns legend Lou Groza. He is part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 1974, largely as the left tackle in Paul Brown’s Cleveland dynasty years, but also as “The Toe,” a kicker who led the NFL in career scoring when he retired.
The other three are easy. They are the only NFL kicking specialists elected to the Hall — Jan Stenerud (Class of 1991), Morten Andersen (Class of 2017) and Adam Vinatieri (Class of 2026).
There’s some Groza grit in Vinatieri, to whom Bill Parcells declared, “You’re a football player, not just a kicker,” after he chased down former Heisman winner Herschel Walker and planted him during a return. The 6-foot, 200-pound Vinatieri was a high school linebacker.
The other two on this Rushmore were only ever kickers in all of their football days.
Stenerud played youth soccer in Norway and came to the USA on a skiing scholarship. Andersen grew up in Denmark and was a 17-year-old exchange student when Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis talked him onto the football team.
Vinatieri hails from South Dakota, where his high school in Rapid City was a short drive from the real Mount Rushmore. He was a football quarterback and linebacker in addition to kicking. He wrestled, played basketball and ran track.
His all-around scholar-athlete résumé earned an appointment to the United State Military Academy. He went to West Point but soon returned home, where for three years he was the punter and placekicker for the South Dakota State Jackrabbits.
The NFL wasn’t interested in a talented but inconsistent prospect from NCAA Division II. Vinatieri spent 1995 without a team and in heavy training.
He kicked and punted well in NFL Europe for the Amsterdam Admirals in the spring of 1996, earning a tryout with the New England Patriots. Parcells picked him over 39-year-old Matt Bahr, a former Browns kicker.
Vinatieri was an entrenched Patriot by 1998, when Phil Dawson spent the season on the practice squad, prior to joining the Browns in 1999 and eventually breaking Groza’s Cleveland scoring record.
The Patriots replaced head coach Pete Carroll with Bill Belichick in 2000.
In the Super Bowl capping Belichick's 2001 season, Vinatieri broke a 17-17 tie with the Rams with a 48-yard field goal as time expired.
In a Super Bowl against Carolina two years later, he connected from 41 yards with four seconds left to break a 29-all tie.
After he helped beat the Eagles in a third Super Bowl the next year, the Patriots made him their franchise player for 2005, costing them $2.5 million.
In 2006, Belichick deemed the new franchise-tag price, $3 million, too high for a kicker and let Vinatieri walk after 10 seasons, at age 33.
He went to the Colts as a free agent and instantly popped up in another Super Bowl, making three field goals in a 29-17 win over the Bears.
Letting Vinatieri go worked out for Belichick as a business decision.
Rookie fourth-round draft pick Stephen Gostkowski replaced Vinatieri in 2006 and spent 14 seasons with the team, kicking in three Super Bowl wins.
Vinatieri stabilized the Colts placekicking position for a long, long time. At one point, he made an NFL-record 44 field goals in a row.
Vinatieri announced his retirement on the Pat McAfee Show on May 26, 2021.
“It all started on a snowy day in Foxborough,” Vinatieri says now, as if he has told his story before.
A blizzard blew through the hills south of Boston on Jan. 19, 2002.
“I’m sure it looked pretty,” Vinatieri says. “It was pretty hard to play in.”
Jon Gruden’s Raiders seemed to clinch a 13-10 playoff win when Tom Brady fumbled with 1:47 left. The call was overturned amid loud protests that led to “the tuck rule.” Still, Vinatieri had to make a 45-yard field goal in impossible conditions.
“We could barely run, let alone kick a field goal of that length,” Vinatieri’s Patriots teammate Mike Vrabel said.
“When you watch it now, it’s amazing that he made it,” said Dawson.
The amazing make sent the game to overtime, when Vinatieri put through a shorter one for the win.
His Super Bowls were indoors or in warm weather, in New Orleans, Houston, Jacksonville and Miami. He missed the Colts’ loss to New Orleans in Super Bowl XLIV because of injury, replaced by Matt Stover. It was the last career game for Stover, then 42.
Stover’s story is similar to Vinatieri’s. He was a high school receiver who kicked for the Browns for five years and then for the Ravens for 13 years after the move to Baltimore.
The current top 10 in NFL career scoring is:
1, Vinatieri, 2,673 points; 2, Morten Andersen, 2,544; 3, Gary Anderson, 2,434; 4, Jason Hanson, 2,150; 5, John Carney, 2,062; 6, Stover, 2,004; 7, George Blanda, 2,002; 8, Jason Elam, 1,983; 9, John Kasay, 1,970; 10, Robbie Gould, 1,961
Blanda was a quarterback and kicker. The others were kickers exclusively.
Browns fans saw Vinatieri kick against Cleveland 10 times.
One was in Belichick’s memorable return to Cleveland, before anyone suspected he would build a Patriots dynasty. Dawson kicked four field goals to Vinatieri’s one in a 19-11 Browns win. Vinatieri wound up 8-2 against the Browns.
He didn't take himself too seriously, as reflected by one of his pet sayings: “I never get to bake the cake. I get to put the icing on once in a while.”
Vinatieri, 53, treasures his time in New England and is still a Patriots fan, in addition to holding allegiance to the team that kept him longer, the Colts.
He and his wife, Valerie, have three children. The oldest, A.J., is entering his senior year as a punter at Lindenwood University in Missouri. The family lives in Zionsville, Indiana, about 15 miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis.
The three oldest players in NFL history were Blanda, 48; Morten Anderson, 47; and Vinatieri, 47.
“As I aged, I went from being the rookie to the vet, then the big brother, then the dad, and by the end probably the grandpa in the locker room,” Vinatieri said.
He was taken quite seriously by his peers, who entrusted him to a prominent role in the NFL Players Association.
One of the most respected members of the expansion-era Browns was Dawson, who spent 14 seasons in Cleveland before kicking elsewhere. He was 44 when he ceremonially “retired as a Brown” in 2019.
Dawson's role model was Adam Vinatieri.
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This article originally appeared on The Repository: There was a little bit of Browns legend Lou Groza in Adam Vinatieri