Roberto Aguayo’s struggles appear over after perfect game

Roberto Aguayo looks to be fine, despite a whole lot of panicking over his earlier preseason struggles. Aguayo was perfect three 33-yard extra points and three field goals in yesterday’s win over the Cleveland Browns, including a 48-yard field goal. He was also outstanding on kickoffs, producing seven touchbacks on seven tries.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ second-round pick definitely needed a performance like that, after struggling in his first two preseason games. In his first two games, he missed three of his seven kicks, all but one of them shorter than 40 yards. He looked lackluster on kickoffs, then made matters worse by shanking a field goal in practice this week.

Aguayo sought help for his kicking woes, though, both from a mental coach and from fellow kickers. It looks like that worked, because the Aguayo we saw yesterday looked a whole lot more like FSU-Aguayo than early-Bucs-Aguayo.

Of course, this doesn’t mean Aguayo’s going to be perfect from here on out. He’ll miss some kicks. Every kicker does. And there will be times where he’ll miss kicks in rapid succession, too. The fact that he managed a perfect game doesn’t mean he’s going to be perfect from here on out. It should, however, mean that the panic of the first two weeks was overblown.