Cincinnati's luck with kickers hasn't been particularly great in the past year. Along with the various short-range missed field goals and point after attempts -- Brad St. Louis' awful snaps having a lot to do with that -- Shayne Graham had the worst field goal conversion percentage in his Bengals career. Yet, his worst conversion rate in 2009 (82.1%) was still over three points better than Mike Nugent's conversions in 2010 (78.9%).
Regardless, Nugent, who won an epic battle between place kickers with only a broken pool stick against Dave Rayner during the preseason, won't be able to improve upon his field goal conversion rate this season after suffering an ACL tear on an onside kick attempt against the Indianapolis Colts, going on Injured Reserve earlier in the week.
On Tuesday, the Bengals invited Aaron Pettrey and former Longhorns kicker Lawrence Hunter for a workout and invited Shane Andrus in for a visit. The Bengals signed Pettrey, who, as Joe Reedy puts it, is apart of a family that are longtime Bengals fans. Not sure if that's the reason he was signed, but can you say for certainty that it isn't?
And according to Joe Reedy, the Bengals did call Jeff Reed's agent Don Henderson after the place kicker cleared waivers on Wednesday.
“We talked with the Bengals and considered it a good opportunity. But thought it was best that we’re not going to kick this weekend,” Henderson said. “It wasn’t because of the Bengals (that we turned down the offer). We thought it would be better for Jeff to recharge and get ready for the rest of the season. We’ll start listening to offers again on Sunday or Monday.”
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There stands a good reason to believe that the Bengals could still be interested with Reed after this weekend, largely depending on how impressive Pettrey is. We can assume that the team will be calling Henderson again, unless Pettrey nails three 50-yard field goals and a 70-yarder to win the game.