CBSSportsline.com recently polled 19 of the 32 NFL head coaches, asking who was the most underrated NFL player. And while a variety of different names came up, including Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Brad Johnson who received a poll-high three votes, one Patriots player did get a vote.
Each coach probably assigned different criteria to the search for the league's most underrated player, but for Baltimore Ravens Head Coach Brian Billick that guy is Adam Vinatieri. Billick and Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome actually talked the issue over before coming up with the name of New England's Super Bowl winning kicker.
The pair of football minds called Vinatieri “the Mariano Rivera of the NFL, the game's greatest postseason closer.”
During the Patriots superbowl run, Adam Vinatieri may have turned in what could be argued as the greatest post season kicking performance of all time.
In the AFC championship game and with 27 seconds left and with 6 inches of snow on the ground, Adam Vinatieri kicked a 45 yard field goal into a driving snowstorm to tie the game. He then kicked a 23 yard field goal to win it in O.T.
The game was marred by the infamous "TUCK" rule. But fate sometimes has a way of showing us why he plays his hand. Not only did it give us one of the most dramatic kicks of all time, it gave us one the greatests upsets in Superbowl history.
After a clutch drive by the Patriot offense in the waning seconds of one of the most entertaining Superbowls in recent memory, Adam Vinatieri connected on a last play 48 yard game winning field goal. Vinatier was two for two in field goals and perfect on extra points.
