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Lots of Leg: Panthers could keep Lloyd just for his kickoffs
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Published: August 23, 2008
CHARLOTTE -- When Rhys Lloyd boomed his first four kickoffs deep into the end zone in the Carolina Panthers' preseason opener against Indianapolis two weeks ago, fans at Bank of America were pleasantly surprised.
And, a little befuddled.
Who was that shaggy-haired kicker with a cannon for a right leg, and where did he come from?
"Even my wife was wondering who he was," Coach John Fox said with a chuckle.
The short answer: Lloyd is the guy that the Panthers hope can solve their kickoff problems and serve as a backup to John Kasay, who is entrenched as their field-goal kicker.
The longer answer: Lloyd is an Englishman who came to the United States at age 15, never intended to play American football, wound up kicking at the University of Minnesota, and has bounced around the NFL for the past four years because his distance is far more reliable than his direction. He was claimed off waivers by the Panthers for their final game last season, at Tampa Bay, and has continued to impress the coaching staff through off-season workouts and training camp.
He will try to solidify his spot on the 53-man regular-season roster tonight when the Panthers play the Washington Redskins in their third preseason game.
"I think I add an extra dynamic to the team with my leg strength," Lloyd said. "But I still have a long way to go before the final cuts."
It's an interesting situation to watch because most NFL teams don't carry two kickers. Either the place-kicker handles kickoff chores, or the punter doubles as the kickoff man. Kasay, 38 and in his 18th NFL season, has handled the kickoff chores for almost all of his 14 seasons with the Panthers.
But while Kasay continues to be an accurate field-goal kicker, his kickoffs have gotten shorter and shorter in recent years, setting up opponents for long returns.
The difference between one of Lloyd's non-returnables and one of Kasay's short or out-of-bounds kickoffs can mean 15 or 20 yards worth of field position to the Panthers.
"That's a weapon if you can put it out of the end zone, so you give the other team the ball on minus-20," Fox said. "We'll continue to evaluate that, but he's looked very strong in camp."
Lloyd views keeping two kickers as a win-win-win situation for himself, Kasay and the Panthers.
"We have a guy like John who is moving on in the years -- and I'm sure he will love me for saying that -- but I think it's helping him, too," Lloyd said. "It's saving his leg. He's one of the best kickers around. If it's helping out the team, that's a good thing."
Lloyd grew up in Dover, England, dreaming of playing professional soccer. His father played professional soccer for four English clubs, then got into coaching. His father moved the family to Apple Valley, Minn., (a Minneapolis suburb) when Rhys was 15 to start a soccer academy.
He considered American football to be boring and never considered playing it until a twist of fate changed all that. He was with the Eastview High track team on a trip to Disney's Wide World of Sports in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., and at the urging of friends, kicked a few footballs at an NFL-sponsored booth. One of the track coaches was also Eastview's football coach. The coach liked what he saw, and talked Lloyd into kicking for the football team on Friday nights in addition to playing for the soccer team throughout the week.
"It was a complete accident," Lloyd said. "I was just fooling around. I never had any intention of playing football."
But one thing led to another and Lloyd eventually kicked at a community college for two years and then got a football scholarship to the University of Minnesota. He was honorable mention All-Big Ten as a senior.
By that time, the NFL was definitely on his mind. He had already quit soccer by that point.
"I felt like if I wanted to make a career out of being an athlete, the NFL was the better route to take in America, just because it's a higher-profile sport than soccer is over here," Lloyd said. "Soccer isn't really much of a money-maker and the MLS struggles from time to time. So me and my dad sat down and we just felt like it was the best decision. It (pursuing a professional soccer career) was the hardest decision I had to make. It was hard to let go."
Lloyd was originally signed as an undrafted free agent by Baltimore in 2005, but was waived in the preseason. He spent the 2006 preseason with Green Bay, but again was waived. The breakthrough came when he landed a job with Frankfurt of NFL Europa in 2007, and he was 16 of 23 on field goals and 28 of 28 on extra points, with a 56-yard field goal against Cologne.
The Ravens brought him back in the 2007 season, and he spent much of the time bouncing from the practice squad to the active roster. When the Ravens' Matt Stover was limited to place-kicking because of a thigh injury, Lloyd made his NFL regular-season debut last Nov. 5 by handling the kickoffs against Pittsburgh.
The Ravens eventually waived him again on Dec. 22, as a way of dropping him to the practice squad again, but this time the Panthers claimed him. He was used on all kickoffs in the Panthers' 31-23 win at Tampa Bay. Of his six kickoffs, two went for touchbacks and the other four were returned for an average of 13 yards.
Ever since, he has been the Panthers' kickoff man.
With an asterisk.
"I don't look at myself as a kickoff specialist," he said. "I feel like I'm a kicker as much as John is. It's just that my situation is slightly different because I'm making my way into the league whereas John has been in the league. I'm tagged a kickoff specialist because of my leg strength and the situation hasn't come up to where I'm kicking field goals in the league. But I didn't come into the league as a kickoff specialist. I came into the league as a kicker. I feel I can kick field goals with the best in the league. So it's a matter of time.
"That's not saying I'm going to take over John's job in the next week or two, because that is not reality. The reality is I'm here to do a job handling the kickoffs and anything else they need me to do."
■ John Delong can be reached at jdelong@wsjournal.com.
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