Segrest Says Akers Needs to Trust Leg Strength

Really Lost One · Oct 3, 2008

David Akers just doesn't know his own strength, Rory Segrest was saying yesterday.

It sounds silly, but maybe it really isn't. Segrest's contention is that the Eagles' kicker, who lost weight in the offseason and got stronger, attempting to turn around a slide that started with a hamstring injury in 2005, compensated too much for the wind on those two field goals he missed last week at Chicago.

Akers was plenty long but wide right on a 50- and a 47-yarder. Afterward, he said he hit both balls that way on purpose, that his analysis of the Soldier Field wind currents told him the kicks would drift back left, through the uprights. They didn't.

"I think it's just the deal where Dave has got to trust his leg strength," said Segrest, the Birds' special-teams coordinator. "He's a different kicker this year than he was last year. I think, the way he was hitting the ball last year, the [Chicago] kicks probably would have been good. He just got so much more powerful over the offseason here, and when he hits the ball from those types of distances, the ball is just not moving as much. He's not going to have to adjust so much to the wind conditions. I think, right now, it's just a matter of him trusting that and realizing that he's got a lot more leg strength."

Akers has missed his last eight attempts from 45 yards or farther, but he made a 44-yarder Week 2 at Dallas, and again, sheer distance doesn't seem to be his problem. He has noticeably boosted his kickoff distance this year.

"I overplayed the wind," Akers acknowledged yesterday. "The good thing about it is, my ball tracked very well. About 2 inches to the left on the 47 [which hit the upright] and about a foot on the 50, we'd be talking about something totally different . . . We're talking about such a precision thing. I might as well miss by 50 miles, I might as well have been 10 yards short. It all rates the same.

"I have good pop in my leg, I've got to be positive about that. I've been happy with my kickoffs this year, I've got to be positive about that . . . I'm a competitor, I want to go out and show everyone I'm good."

Akers, listed at 5-10, 200, said he currently weighs 181, the lightest he has been since high school. He wanted to take some pressure off the hamstring and "balance" his body.
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http://www.philly.com/philly/sports...t_says_Akers_needs_to_trust_leg_strength.html

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Segrest Says Akers Needs to Trust Leg Strength

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