Is Carpenter About to Get The Boot ?

“With the 166th overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft , The Miami Dolphins select … Caleb Sturgis , Kicker , University of Florida “. Dan Carpenter , you my friend have officially been put on notice .

Though the latter part of that statement wasn’t exactly uttered from behind the podium last April , make no mistake , that is the message that came across loud and clear throughout all of Dolphins land , and nobody knows it better than Carpenter himself .

An Undrafted Free Agent out of The University of Montana , Carpenter joined the Dolphins in 2008 , made the Pro Bowl in 2009 , and up until last season had been Mr. Dependable .

However , missing victory sealing field goals in back to back games against The Jets and Cardinals last season is enough to put a damper on what had been a somewhat successful tenure with Miami .

There’s a fine line between winning and losing in this league and those misses were quite costly . What could have been a 9 – 7 record and competing for a playoff spot instead was replaced by a 7 – 9 / 4th straight losing season , which is a new low for our beloved Phins .

Kickers missing game winners is something that’s not tolerated in The NFL , plain and simple .

Insert Caleb Sturgis . The 2 time All SEC , All American has power in that leg , and was arguably the best Kicker in This years Draft .

Coach Philbin has plenty of nice things to say about him as well . During last month’s minicamp Coach said ” he looks good ” and “I like the way he handles his business. He seems to be very professional, even though he has only been in the profession since April 15th for about two months. I like the way he moves about the building; he is quiet. He seems to be a hard worker, and he seems to have a pretty strong leg.”

Now here comes the deciding factor , Carpenter is in the final year of his contract , and is due to make roughly $2.7 million this season . Sturgis on the other hand , just signed his Rookie Contract , and is set to make about $405K . That’s over $2 million The Dolphins can save this year by cutting Carpenter .

If you ask Me this is not a hard decision to make . If Sturgis can manage to keep this competition even remotely close , The Dolphins Brass have got to go with the younger , cheaper version that flashed so much potential in College .