Dolphins’ Garo Yepremian leads off Gil Brandt’s top kickers

Gil Brandt has wrapped up his “all-time” at every position with the release of his punters and kickers.

When you think of Miami Dolphins kickers, Garo Yepremiam immediately comes to mind. Afterall he is the predominant replay of Super Bowl VII. While most outside of Miami will remember him for his ill-fated muffed kick-pass-interception, Yepremian put up solid numbers.

Yepremian played nine seasons with Miami after two season in Detroit then left for the Saints, and Buccaneers to end his career. He won two Super Bowls and went to two Pro-Bowls.

Over his career Yepremian made 67.1% of his field goal attempts and 95% of his extra point attempts. Despite that, Yepremian doesn’t rank as the best Miami Dolphins player in team history at the position.

That honor goes to Olindo Mare. Who is not on the list.

Mare made 356 field goals in his career, good enough for 16th place all-time and more FG’s made than seven others on his list, including Yepremian. Mare’s problem however may lie with his ranking in field goal percentages where he drops to 35th on the list with just over 80%.

Without knowing what parameters Gil Brandt used to decide his top list of kickers, it’s hard to really justify the inclusion of any kicker that was left off. With field goals and FG percentages, attempts, extra points, and so on, it really might just come down to personal likes and impressions. Maybe even simply those that are easier to recall.

Regardless, Mare deserves mention and as much as I loved the former “tie salesman” Mr. Yepremian may have made the list over him simply because of repeated highlight reels. Glad he is on it nonetheless because if he were swapped for Mare, I would be arguing that he should be on it.