Buccaneers GM believes that Roberto Aguayo is worth a first rounder and I agree
Tampa Bay Buccaneers were picked on and called out big time for drafting a kicker in the 2nd round. The Bucs GM does not care what media thinks, and still stands on his beliefs to draft a kicker early. In an interview with Scott Reynolds of Pewter Report, Licht said kicker Roberto Aguayo was a first round pick.
“Not a lot of people will ever admit that a kicker is worth a first-round pick,” Licht said. “I’m going to be jumping for joy when a few of the people in your business (the media) realize that some are.”
Licht worked in New England and gives Bill Belichick credit for helping him understand the importance of a kicker. Belichick told his scouts to list a top 10 players list and not one of them included a kicker. That was Jason Licht as a young scout, and boy did he learn the importance of the kicker when the team selected Stephen Gostkowski in the fourth round of the 2006 NFL Draft.
“‘Nobody wants to put Gostkowski in our top 10? Why, just because he’s a kicker?’ Bill made us ‘rethink that’ and he got his point across,” Licht related. “He said, ‘You tell me 10 other players that are more important than him!’”
The Buccaneers traded up to land Aguayo and when he was asked how high the team actually had him listed, Licht basically said the team envisioned him as a first round pick.
“We had Aguayo ranked high – pretty high,” Licht said. “We moved up into the second round to get him, so that should tell you something about where we had him ranked.”
In the new NFL, a kicker is very important. Robert Aguayo is the best kicker to enter the draft in a long time, and he will dominate the NFL. I think the Buccaneers did an amazing job by drafting Aguayo early, because if they didn’t someone else would have.
NFL Draft Diamonds was created to assist the underdogs playing the sport. We call them diamonds in the rough. My name is Damond Talbot, I have worked extremely hard to help hundreds of small school players over the past several years, and will continue my mission. We have several contributors on this site, and if they contribute their name and contact will be in the piece above. You can email me at nfldraftdiamonds@gmail.com