Hilfestellungen » e birdied five of her final seven holes,

The idea was to put some excitement into NFL extra points. On Sunday, it became unwise to head to the fridge when the kickers came in.A dozen times in Week 11, those 1-pointers became no-pointers. Blame the swirling winds. Blame the suspect blocking. Blame sloppy holding.Or point fingers at the toes of Mike Nugent and Robbie Gould, who each missed a pair of PATs. Not to mention Stephen Gostkowski and Steven Hauschka. Connor Barth and Kai Forbath. Matt Prater and Cody Parkey. And Jason Myers, who failed on seven extra points last season -- yep, seven -- and still kept his job with the Jaguars.It just drives me crazy to have a poor performance that contributes to a loss, said Nugent, whose Bengals fell 16-12 to Buffalo. Had he made both extra points, a field goal late in the game could have won it for Cincinnati.Thats the second time thats happened this year, that Ive contributed enormously to a loss. If I did what I was brought here to do, wed have two less losses, in my opinion.Several kickers noted they were compensating for the wind, particularly the Giants Gould and the Bears Barth, who coincidentally replaced the veteran Gould in Chicago this season. Kicking in the Meadowlands has never been a picnic, and conditions figure to get worse there and in many other NFL cities as the schedule moves along.But one of the main reasons for bringing in veteran kickers -- Myers is in his second pro season, Hopkins and Parkey their third, but the rest are pretty seasoned NFLers -- is their ability to handle such challenges, mentally and physically.They failed in record numbers Sunday.The first one I hit was where I was hitting them in pregame, Gould said. I thought I made it and it went outside the left upright. The second one I just didnt hit a good ball. Today was tough, but I have to make them.His coach, Ben McAdoo, was giving Gould the benefit of the doubt.It was a tough day to kick the football, McAdoo admitted, also knowing it was his decision to bring in Gould after the Giants waived Josh Brown in October following revelations about his abusive behavior toward his former wife.Well go back, well look at it, well talk about everything. The wind obviously was a factor every time you had a play in the kicking game today.That was not the case in Detroit. Ford Field is indoors, yet Prater and Myers had misses.So whats going on when a two-time All-Pro such as Gostkowski misses three PATs in the last five games? Or Hauschka has an extra-point kick blocked in successive games?Not to mention perhaps the play of the year last weekend, when Denver ran back a blocked extra point against New Orleans for a defensive 2-point conversion that won the game?A 33-yard kick should be automatic for virtually every NFL kicker, yet we know, 12 times over on Sunday, that is not true.Among the factors contributing are pressure, over-analysis, poor mechanics, weak blocking and, well, bad luck.Before last year, when the new rule placed the ball at the 15 for extra-point kicks, little thought or preparation was needed for such chip shots. Now, kickers -- and holders, snappers and blockers -- do need to think about the kicks. But they dont get a whole bunch of extra practices on them.Kickers traditionally are a quirky bunch. That isnt necessarily a bad thing; just look at how successful Sebastian Janikowski has been for the Raiders.But they also are prone to thinking too hard about kicks. Why else would opposing coaches try to ice them?Bad weather, particularly slippery surfaces and wind, have a huge effect. A wet ball is much harder to boot accurately, as well as more difficult to snap and hold. Uncertain footing plagues kickers legs and psyches.As for the wind, thats the enemy of everyone but defenders on a football team.So those excuses sometimes work, though, again, not in the friendly kicking confines of a dome.The biggest issue for kickers comes when they get in a rut. Unlike other positions that require deep knowledge of a playbook, kickers and punters are much more on their own. When placekickers cant find the middle of the uprights, they usually find themselves on their own and off the roster.---For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFL. Wholesale Air Max 97 .C. -- When North Carolina freshman Ryan Switzer reported to training camp in August he was a little miffed to learn he was third on the depth chart at punt returner. Cheap Vans Australia .5 million, one-year contract on Friday. Hawkins, who turns 41 in December, will compete with Rex Brothers for the closers role at spring training. http://www.discountaustraliashoes.com/cheap-air-max-270-fake.html Cheap Jordan 1 Australia . Only three players drafted by NHL clubs were included on the Czech selection camp roster on Wednesday. Those players were Dallas Stars 2012 first-rounder Radek Faksa, Winnipeg Jets 2013 fourth-rounder Jan Kostalek and Phoenix Coyotes 2012 seventh-rounder Marek Langhamer. Fake Jordan 1 . -- The boos poured down on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots at the end of a horrible first half. SAN MARTIN, Calif. -- When Mirim Lee walked off the course following her record-tying round, she described her day with words usually not heard when talking about the U.S. Womens Open.So todays round was easy day -- easy round, yeah, Lee said.She sure made it look that way when she became the fifth golfer to shoot a round of 8-under par at the U.S. Womens Open on Thursday, making 10 birdies on the way to a 64 to take the first-round lead at CordeValle.With the greens not quite as firm as they likely will be later in the week and the wind not playing a major factor, there were low scores to be had throughout the field -- at least for the opening morning of the tournament when 23 players shot under par, including six of the top seven on the leaderboard.I definitely expect it to change, said Cristie Kerr, who was three shots behind Lee in a tie for second. I dont think the USGA likes when we shoot 8-under on their golf course. You have to expect it to change, and if it doesnt, then youll have opportunities to score.The play got much tougher in the afternoon when the wind picked up and only 14 players were under par, led by Amy Yang who birdied 18 to move into a three-way tie for second at -5 with Kerr and Minjee Lee.None of the players in the marquee group that featured three of the top four players in the world in Lydia Ko, Brooke Henderson and Lexi Thompson could break par. Ko birdied her final hole at No. 9 to finish the day 1 over, one shot ahead of Thompson and three in front of Henderson.Those three will need to do plenty of work to catch Lee.I dont know what course she played, maybe the ladies tees, maybe a different course, Ko said. But she played fantastic. We were checking the leaderboard, she made two bogeys and still shot 8-under. Its very impressive. She must have hit a lot of fairways and made good putts. I think obviously thats the key.Lee is the first woman to shoot that much below par at the U.S. Open since Lorie Kane and Becky Iverson did it in the second round in 1999 at Old Waverly in Mississippi. The lowest total score in a round in U.S. Open history is a 63 by Helen Alfredsson in 1994 at the par-71 Indianwood in Michigan.ddddddddddddLee capped her record day with birdie from about 8 feet on her final hole at the par-5 ninth.The course is perfect now, Mirim Lee said. Greens are really fast.Kerr, playing in the same group with Lee, nearly matched her stroke for stroke with players standing 3-under through their first 11 holes. But Lee birdied five of her final seven holes, while Kerr had three birdies and a bogey down the stretch as a gap opened between the two.Despite that, Kerr was quite pleased with how her round went considering the way she has played most of this year. The 2007 U.S. Open winner has not finished higher than 10th all season and missed two cuts in her three tournaments leading into this week.But with a new shaft on her driver, Kerr found her game in the opening round.When youre struggling to hit fairways, it makes the game a lot harder, Kerr said. And then the mental game gets off of it, its a whole process like that. But I knew when I found the driver this week that it just felt so much like my old driver and we found the right combination and even if I missed a little bit I could feel what I did wrong, I could feel the difference.Kelly Tan, Brittany Lang and Anna Nordqvist were tied with Yang four shots back at 4-under. Nordqvist hit all 18 greens in regulation, the first time that has happened at the U.S. Open since the statistic started being tracked in 1986. Sydnee Michaels, Moriya Jutanugarn and Eun Hee Ji were all at 3 under.So Yeon Ryu, the 2011 U.S. Open winner, shot a triple-bogey eight on her final hole at the ninth to fall from 4-under to 1-under.Defending champion In Gee Chun, followed by about a dozen members of the Flying Dumbo fan club wearing shirts that Chun designed, hit back-to-back bogeys on the front nine and finished 1 over. Chun is seeking to become the eighth player to repeat as U.S. Open champion and first since Karrie Webb did it 15 years ago. ' ' '