Oakland Raiders lose franchise icon Sebastian Janikowski for season
By Matt Conner
The Oakland Raiders will be without their franchise icon and ironman kicker Sebastian Janikowski for the rest of the 2017 season.
The Oakland Raiders have a lot of hype to live up to this year given the number of NFL analysts who have them not only winning the AFC West but making significant noise in the playoffs. Unfortunately they’ll have to enjoy the spoils of success—if they can reach them—without the one player who has endured the most to get to this point: kicker Sebastian Janikowski.
Raiders placed K Sebastian Janikowski on injured reserve, per source.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 9, 2017
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Janikowski has dealt with back issues during the preseason and the Raiders were also reportedly interested in lowering his financial hit. At the age of 39, Janikowski has become a franchise icon for the Raiders given that he’s been with the team since they made him their first round pick when Y2K was still a thing. Taking a first round kicker seemed like a laughable thing to do at the time (and it still is, honestly), but Janikowski has done all he can to reward the Raiders for their faith in him.
Janikowski has a career field-goal percentage of 80.4 and even last season he made 82.9 percent of his attempts, meaning he’s still kicking at a fairly decent clip. Last year he only made 3 of 8 from beyond 50 yards, but he made 10 of 11 from 40 yards out, so the strengths is still there to go with the accuracy.
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Janikowski’s 17 seasons with the Raiders are a franchise record, and it will be a shame if this back injury is the one that ends it all. That much remains to be seen, but now the Raiders must move forward with a new kicker for the first time since the ’90s.