Miami Dolphins 2020 player preview: Jason Sanders
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins are trusting their kicking duties to Jason Sanders again in 2020.
Jason Sanders will enter his third season with the Miami Dolphins this year and when the teams finally return to the practice field, Sanders will not face competition.
Sanders, for now, has no competition heading into camp but that could change and if he doesn’t perform to the Dolphins standards early, Brian Flores will likely look to bring someone in to push him. Frankly, all kickers and punters should have competition in camps.
In his two seasons thus far, Sanders has done well. He is perfect inside the 30 and has only missed one attempt from 30-39 yards and six from 40-49. Last year he missed two kicks from outside of 50 yards. On extra points, Sanders has only missed two in his career.
Field goals aren’t the only measurement to analyze. The NFL has seen an increase in touchbacks with new league rules for player safety. Sanders has been good with his kick-offs but last year only saw a 69% touchback rate. He needs to do better if that is what the coaches are wanting him to do.
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Coverage of kicks is important and if the Dolphins want Sanders to pin teams deeper then it would explain the shortened kicks. This is not tracked by the NFL but his average kickoff was 62.8 in 2018 and 60.8 yards in 2019.
Sanders is consistent and needs to continue that in 2020 as the Dolphins offense is expected to improve and more opportunities should be presented. Last season, Sanders only attempted 30 field goals which are quite low. He missed seven of them as we noted above.
With no competition, Sanders should be a lock for a third year as the kicker but he has a small margin of error once they are back on the field as kickers have been easy to replace.