ASU Football: Will Zane Gonzalez be Drafted?

With just about two months remaining until the 2017 NFL Draft, it is time to start looking at who from ASU football could be taken in this year’s draft.

Today we will look at Zane Gonzalez.

What he brings to the table:

Gonzalez brings with him the title of record holder for most field goals by a FBS kicker. He also won the Lou Groza award after his senior season. Gonzalez will be looked at as a consistent kicker who has the ability to become the next Adam VInatieri because of said consistency.

Gonzalez will also be held in high regard by NFL coaches. ASU’s head coach, Todd Graham, had nothing but nice things to say about Gonzalez. While a coach is expected to do that, Gonzalez is known for being a hard worker who doesn’t let anything get in the way of trying to improve every day.

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Weaknesses:

While Gonzalez was a very good kicker in college, there are still areas where he needs to improve. Gonzalez’s biggest area to work on is accuracy. While he is consistent, that can be a double-edged sword. There are times where Gonzalez was consistently good, like in his senior year, but there are also times where he was consistently bad, like his junior year.

In his junior season, Gonzalez converted his kicks only 76.47 percent of the time. That may not seem bad, but when you think of a kicker only making three out of every four field goals it becomes a lot worse.

Will he be drafted?

Yes. There is no way that a team isn’t going to take a chance on an extremely consistent kicker who just needs to improve his accuracy a tiny bit to have the chance to become one of the all-time greats. Now unfortunately for Gonzalez, he is coming to the NFL in 2017, a season after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers used a second-round pick on Roberto Aguayo.

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Aguayo came out of college having a very similar skill set to Gonzalez, but he had a rough rookie season. Because of that draft selection last year, it is highly unlikely that Gonzalez will be a second-round pick. Look for Gonzalez’s name to be called sometime after round three as he will most likely be taken in the fourth round.