INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indianapolis Colts have no plans to make a kicking change despite the season-long struggles of veteran Adam Vinatieri.
Vinatieri has made a career-low 70.6 percent of his field goal attempts this season. He's missed 10 kicks -- five extra points and five field goals -- in just eight games this season. Some teams would have made a kicking change, especially considering the Colts would likely be 7-1 if Vinatieri didn't miss kicks against the Chargers in Week 1 and the Steelers in Week 9.
But the Colts are standing pat with the NFL's all-time leading scorer despite general manager Chris Ballard working out six kickers after Week 2.
"A lot of confidence, no plans to do anything different," coach Frank Reich said Monday.
Vinatieri had the opportunity to make the 30th game-winning kick, including his second in consecutive weeks, of his 24-year career on Sunday in Indy's loss to Pittsburgh. His 43-yard kick, though, had no chance, as it went wide left after a bad snap and hold had the 46-year-old kicking the ball with the laces facing him.
"I think we all saw it, he got laces and it was a fluke," Reich said. "...I held for a lot of years. I haven't talked to (holder Rigoberto Sanchez). It made it a lot tougher on Adam. There's not very many times that you see a kicker actually kick the laces straight on. It doesn't happen very often. The only time it normally happens, I know as a holder, if you get a blind spot. You go to put it down, there's a split second you can't locate the laces. It happens once every 100 times and it was just a fluke. Unfortunately Adam had to kick the laces and [that] plays into it in my mind."
Vinatieri didn't use the poor exchange as an excuse for the miss.
"I just missed it," he said "I got to do better than that, just pulled it left."
