Kasay returns to form for another late pressure kick
December 29
Charlotte Observer
"John Kasay had felt bad all week.
On Sunday, there was a chance to be good again.
The Carolina Panthers kicker grabbed it, drilling a 42-yard field goal with one second left in the game to edge New Orleans 33-31 and set the Panthers up beautifully for the playoffs.
"You dubbed us the 'Cardiac Cats' a few years ago, right?" Kasay said in a jubilant Carolina locker room. "I think you can pull out the hats and T-shirts and get ready for the ride."
The locker-room mood had been far more somber only a week before, when Kasay missed a 50-yard attempt at the end of regulation at Giants Stadium that would have won the game. Instead, the Giants won in overtime 34-28, clinching the NFC's No.1 playoff seed by doing so.
Kasay, 39, is too well-respected in the locker room for teammates to have grumbled about that miss. And he had excuses if he had wanted to use them - the swirling wind, the bitter cold.
He chose not to. Instead, he studied the ripple effect of the errant kick, then hoped to reverse it.
Said Kasay: "The thing that was so hard about last week - the thing that bothered me the most - was that if we win that football game, it gives (teammates) an opportunity where this (New Orleans) game really doesn't have any meaning. Then they get a week off after that. Guys can get healthy. That was the thing that was the most painful. It wasn't missing the kick. It was the consequences."
So again on Sunday, it came down to Kasay. He had made his first three attempts (from 45, 26 and 34) but then had missed a 41-yarder - his first miss under 50 yards all season. That third-quarter miss would have made it 33-10.
But Kasay rushed at the ball too quickly and missed left.
"I was just a little fast," he said. "I got there, but I didn't get a good look on the ball. It started off straight and then it just faded away. Those are the ones that just gall you."
It became even more galling when New Orleans scored three straight touchdowns during the fourth quarter. The Panthers were on the verge of a monumental collapse.
Kasay was praying on the sideline, as is his norm. Since his arrival on the first-ever Panthers team in 1995, Kasay has been Carolina's most verbal player about his faith in God. In that way, he has deepened the faith of a number of teammates as well.
Kasay said his prayer on the sideline went something like this: "Oh Lord, here we go again. I can't do this without You. By Your grace and Your strength, give me the ability so that You get the glory."
Carolina's final drive ended with Kasay about to kick a 37-yarder.
Then Jordan Gross false-started. That made it a 42-yarder.
Kasay didn't waver. "Those things happen," he said. "It's just part of the chaos of what I do."
On the sideline, Panthers coach John Fox was nervous. A 42-yarder in a domed stadium is a lot easier than a 50-yarder in the freezing cold. But still.
"I don't take anything for
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