Raiders looking for Marquette King to reclaim kick holding duties

Last season Marquette King was supposed to be the team's kick holder. He took over those duties two seasons ago when Shane Lechler left for Houston after 13 years as the team's holder. That didn't go so well for the Raiders.

With King as the holder, Sebastian Janikowski had one of the worst seasons of his career. All told, Janikowski missed nine field goal attempts that season. In total he was 21 of 30 for a terrible 70% on the season -- his second worst since his rookie season. Those misses came from 48, 35, 52, 52, 54, 32, 48, 52 and 42. That's five misses inside 50 yards after having had just one miss inside 50 the previous two seasons combined.

In the offseason, Janikowski revealed it was a "trust issue" with King who was eventually replaced as holder by Matt Schaub. Janikowski's kicking improved considerably with Schaub holding kicks, converting on 86.4% of his attempts, and missing just one kick inside 50 yards.

While some teams like to put backup quarterbacks as the holder due to the threat they pose for fakes, Raiders new special teams coach Brad Seely wants to give the job back to Marquette King.

"We'd like to have that role filled by our punter," said Seely. "Our punter should be the guy, because he has the best advantage to get to work with the kicker all practice. It's hard for those guys if you're taking a quarterback or even a wide receiver, or somebody at a different position, you just don't get as many repetitions in practice. So you always hope your punter can be the guy."

So, the team will be giving King another shot to be the holder just as he was heading into camp last year when King was of the mind his and Janikowski's chemistry was great. Now, they give it another shot.

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