The Super Bowl is the most hyped event in sports and with names like Peyton Manning and Richard Sherman dominating the headlines, there is a good chance that two lesser named players will decide the outcome of the game and they are the kickers in Matt Prater and Steven Hauschka, two special teamers with a knack for kicking in bad weather.
Both Prater and Hauschka had great seasons for their respective teams and now many people think the Super Bowl matchup is so close in skills that the game could be decided by the kick of a leg. Prater has made his fair share of big kicks and he was the one to set the record with a 64-yard kick this season and now he is hoping to add a Super Bowl trophy to his mantle as well and it could come at a clutch time for the Broncos on Sunday.
Prater has missed just one field goal this season and he has been great in the playoffs, making five of six kicks, while Hauschka has missed just two and is 33 for 35 this season and he has made the last six he has tried in the playoffs as well. The two players know each other and it comes from their time with the Baltimore Ravens for a moment and now they will be opposing kickers in the game. Don't be surprised if one of these kicks helps decided the Super Bowl, as the teams are so close it could be the difference in the championship.
Here is a Denver Broncos kicker Matt Prater and his Seattle Seahawks counterpart, Steven Hauschka, can certainly count themselves in singular company as they prepare for the Super Bowl.
With five of the last six Super Bowls having been decided by less than a touchdown, Sunday's title clash at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey could well come down to a kicking contest between Prater and Hauschka.
The two men perform the loneliest roles in the National Football League. When they succeed and kick field goals between the uprights from 40 yards to win games, their contribution is often no more than a footnote as the story is told.
Conversely, when they succumb to the agony of a miss with the glory of a championship or even a regular-season game on the line, their role is widely analyzed and criticized.
The kicker becomes a major talking point in defeat; in victory he is often barely acknowledged.
Statistics indicate that field goals are being made from increasingly longer distances, and that makes misses all the more striking - especially in the rarefied atmosphere of a Super Bowl.
Though the pressure of making a precision kick with very little time left on the clock is always intense, Prater said he would embrace the chance to earn the winning points for the Broncos on Sunday.
Last month, Prater set a National Football League record with a 64-yard field goal during his team's 51-28 rout of the Tennessee Titans in mile-high Denver, a feat he says owes everything to game conditions.
Prater comes into Sunday's game having connected on 25-of-26 field goal attempts in the regular season and set a league touchback record with 81. He has converted five of his six field goal tries in the postseason. Asked whether he felt any added pressure heading into his first Super Bowl, he replied: "I'm not nervous, I'm excited. I just have to treat it like any other game and make sure I execute everything right."
Signed by the Detroit Lions as an undrafted free agent in May 2006 and released just three months later, Prater bounced around between several teams before playing his first two NFL games for the Atlanta Falcons in 2007 and then being cut.
He took over as starting kicker for the Broncos in 2008, replacing Jason Elam who signed with Falcons, and has since played six full seasons in Denver.
Hauschka's journey to the Super Bowl has also followed a twisting route, the 28-year-old kicker having been with five different teams in the league since he was originally signed as an undrafted free agent by the Minnesota Vikings in 2008.
Hauschka, a former soccer player at college, spent two seasons with the Baltimore Ravens and a year with the Broncos, where he became friends with Prater, before he was claimed off waivers by Seattle in September 2011. Asked how he felt about the chance to hit a game-winning kick in the Super Bowl, Hauschka replied: "It heightens your awareness, but at the same time you have to treat it the same as any kick in practice." look at the kickers in depth from Reuters.com and more on the Super Bowl matchup.
(Reuters)