Bye, Bye, Brian

The Buffalo Bills cut the best punter they have ever had on Tuesday.

By any measurable standard, Brian Moorman outkicked Chris Mohr and Paul Maguire, the only other  two Buffalo punters in the conversation, by a good distance.

Moorman was three games into his 12^th season in Buffalo, putting him more than a year ahead of his predecessor, Mohr, on the Bills’ punting longevity chart. Moorman’s replacement, rookie  Shawn Powell, will be only Buffalo’s third punter since 1990.

He did not merely hang around, though. Moorman’s ability to kick long, high and to precise spots on the field made him Buffalo’s most valuable player in more than a few games, particularly during the depths of the Mularkey-Jauron years, which spanned the second half of the preceding decade.

While this says at least as much about the feebleness of those teams as it does about Mohr’s ability to kick a ball that he had just intentionally dropped before it hit the ground, he routinely provided a field-position advantage to teammates who desperately needed it.

Moorman’s value earned him a prominent place in a column I wrote long ago, and far away.

Back in August, while walking up to Ralph Wilson Stadium for the exhibition game against Cincinnati, I noticed that the ticket provided by Gary, BillStuff's gracious host for the evening, bore the image of Brian Moorman.

Usually, such high-profile placement is reserved for the quarterback, or running back, or a star defender. Not the guy who only gets to do his job when his teammates have failed at theirs.

"You know, putting your punter on the tickets doesn't exactly instill confidence," I said.

"No," Gary said. "No, it doesn't."

Moorman more than earned such recognition in the game I was writing about, Buffalo’s 16-6 win over Miami in September 2006. Five of his six punts landed inside the Dolphins’ 20-yard line, with four pinning them inside their own 10.

There were more than a few days like that. He also kicked with a consistency that kept him around for more than 11 years. He was also the greatest fake-field-goal holder the Bills have ever had, throwing a touchdown pass in 2008 and another in 2009, giving him a perfect passing rating of 158.3 for both seasons.

His off-field work with various local charities, particularly his own foundation to benefit children with cancer and other serious diseases, helped make him as popular as a punter could possibly hope.

This summer, he almost lost the punting job to Powell, a first-team All-American at Florida State last year, in training camp. Evidently, the Bills decided this week that Moorman had lost a few feet on his kicks, or could no longer place the ball exactly where it would be most beneficial to their coverage schemes.

The 6-foot-4, 248-pound Powell has a big leg, averaging 44.8 yards per kick in the preseason. Moorman’s value, though, came just as much from his consistency catching the ball, on punts and field goal attempts, and kicking it away quickly (just two blocked punts, nine years apart, blemish his statistical resume. Like Mohr before him, he thrived in the swirling winds and icy rain and snow of late fall in Western New York.

Can a guy who has done all of his big-game punting in the relatively balmy American Southeast bear up as well under the weather? The answer will be as important as the strength of Powell’s leg in determining whether he lasts nearly as long as the best punter in Buffalo’s football history.