A Pair of Punters Vie To Be the Guy

Gallery

Redskins Training Camp

The Redskins dive into preparations for the upcoming season.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

"Usually a month, halfway into the season is when you get picked up -- if you do," Frost said. "Kicking and punting is by far the most competitive situation in any preseason. It's head-to-head competition. The stats are there. It's not qualitative like other positions. There might be seven safeties, but they'll keep five."

The lack of camaraderie among teammates took Brooks awhile to get used to when he arrived for minicamp in May. "Derrick was used to the competition, but it took a little while for me to get used to the fact that I've come in to try and take his job."

Brooks since has received advice from friends, who told him: "You can't try to be best friends or think about how he feels. You got to protect yourself and work hard every day knowing there is no backup for this position."

"It's either going to be me or him."

At Georgia Tech, Brooks won the Ray Guy Award as the best punter in the nation. But then, he had an inside track. The Raiders great, whose camps Brooks attended and who mentored him growing up, was a family friend in Georgia. Guy, of course, launched the football heavenward like no one. Of the 1,049 times he punted in his career, not one was returned for a touchdown.

But let's not forget Frost's back story, how he tried out for four teams out of little division I-AA Northern Iowa before catching on in Washington in 2005. Last season, he kicked a career-long punt of 64 yards against Miami. He kept Devin Hester to no more than a measly 12-yard return on a cold, miserable night in December at FedEx Field, kicking the ball safely out of bounds four times in a game the reeling-at-the-time Redskins needed.

But he's also been inconsistent at times, which led to what he called a "shocking" development in the offseason -- an NFL team actually drafting a punter. The last time Washington drafted a punter was 1993. Ed Bunn was a good tale, having been a repo man in college. But the third-round pick never made it out of camp and ostensibly went back to repossessing automobiles for a living.

"I've given three, good years of service to this team," Frost said. "It hasn't been perfect, but it hasn't been terrible either. I don't think I've ever really ever cost us."

But he also acknowledged, "I obviously put myself in this position. I blame myself for putting doubt in their head for my long-term stability on this team. If I had solidified that with them, they wouldn't have drafted anybody no matter how many draft picks they had."

Luckily for Brooks, Frost does not treat competition like dirt, the way former punter Todd Sauerbrun did. Described as "cagey" (read: a cheater who would do anything to keep his job) by fellow kickers and punters, Sauerbrun was called upon to place kick for the Carolina Panthers in 2004 after starter John Kasay's leg injury. Sauerbrun refused to kick unless he was reimbursed for fines he incurred when he was overweight.

At the time, Sauerbrun refused to allow the Panthers to bring either one of the Gramatica place-kicking brothers in for a tryout.

"I'm not going to go out of my way to help anybody but at the same time I'm not going to go out of my way to hurt anybody's chances," Frost said. "I'm an honest person. And it's kind of like golf. It's a gentlemen's competition."