Newest Jags Kicker Jon Brown Has Quite the Story

The latest signing by Jacksonville is beyond interesting, and for multiple reasons. First off, by bringing in kicker Jon Brown, they’ll set the record for having five different kickers attempt a kick in five consecutive games. Only four teams, per ESPN, have had five kickers in an entire year since the merger. That’s the kind of luck the Jags have had at the position this year.

Returning starter Josh Lambo, who led the league in field goal percentage last year, is their only kicker who’s played multiple games thus far but after Week 2 he was on the IR. Rookie Brandon Wright kicked for the Jags in Week 3 before going down with a groin injury, leading to Aldrick Rosas getting a shot in Week 4. Rosas played well, hitting on 4-of-5 field-goal attempts…but he also got hurt. New signee Stephen Hauschka was the next man up, yet an 0-for-2 performance got him promptly cut, bringing us to Brown.

Brown’s story is quite unique; he’s a former D-1 soccer player who’s never attempted a PAT or field goal in a regular-season college or NFL game. He’ll be a 27-year-old rookie kicker, which is unique, but not as unique as being a 27-year-old rookie kicker who’s also a black man.

After playing soccer at Kentucky in 2011, he transferred to Louisville to continue his soccer career. He eventually walked on to the Cardinals football team in 2014 but only appeared in a handful of games as a kickoff specialist.

With little experience, he wasn’t drafted or anything. But after working relentlessly on his game with kicking coach Brett Baer and watching film, the Mississippi native got a one-off tryout with Cincinnati in 2016. “Everybody thought I was a DB,” Brown said in a 2016 ESPN story.

He didn’t make the roster but the Bengals kept him in the fold for the next two years. During the 2018 preseason, he made all six of his field-goal attempts, including a 55-yard shot against the Dallas Cowboys. Last year, he was signed and released by San Francisco before landing on the Jags practice squad ahead of their Week 5 game against Houston, the one Hauschka bombed.

Now, almost a decade after starting his college sports career, he’s getting ready to hit the biggest stage in a sport he didn’t set out to play to begin with. It’s an incredible story and it’ll certainly be easy to root for him. He put the work in and he’s earned his shot.