On Sunday night, Peter King reported during NBC’s Football Night in America that the Saints will be bringing in kickers after Garrett Hartley missed what would have been a game-winning chip-shot in overtime against the Falcons, who later would convert a longer field goal of their own.
Early this morning, we argued that the Saints should forget about Hartley’s postseason heroics, given that kickers are plentiful — and that the Saints won’t have a chance to see Hartley make clutch kicks in January if he can’t make routine ones in September, October, November, and December.
Later this morning, Adam Schefter of ESPN reported that two of the kickers who’ll work out for the Saints are John Carney, who handled the duties during Hartley’s four-game suspension in 2009 for violation of the steroids policy, and Matt Stover, who replaced Adam Vinatieri for most of last season.
It remains to be seen whether coach Sean Payton is merely trying to put the fear of Gus into Hartley. But if Hartley ends up without a job, he’ll have no one to blame but himself.