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Tampa Bay Buccaneers

5 Things to Know about K Chandler Catanzaro

The free agent kicker met with the Tampa Bay media for his introductory press conference on Friday, following the signing of a three-year deal.

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  1. He was perfect in PATs in 2017. In his only year with the New York Jets, Catanzaro hit 29 of 29 extra point attempts. During his four-year career, he has attempted 161 extra points and been successful on 152 of them. "The extra points, that was a big thing for me this year. Repping it more in practice and just treating it like a 33-yard field goal instead of having that label as an extra point, I think that was big for me. I think I went 29-for-29 and definitely happy with the way that went. I'm excited to keep that going here." 2. One of Catanzaro's strengths is his long-range capability. His career-long is from 60 yards, which he hit in his second season in the league while with Arizona. It came about after Catanzaro did some pestering of Head Coach Bruce Arians during practice. "I think 2016 was really a time where in practice with Coach Arians and the Cardinals, we'd have situations where the offense would stall out in a two-minute situation at the 40 [yard line] and I'd be chomping at the bit saying, 'Coach, give me a shot at this.' At first he laughed at me, was like, 'come on, stay over there, stay to yourself.' But I really wanted the shot in a two-minute situation or whatever and he gave me a couple of shots and I think his confidence in me grew with long range. Preseason, I hit a 59-yarder, preseason game four against Denver. That kind of leapfrogged me in that long range. It gave me a lot of confidence. The guys were really pumped and a few weeks later I hit a 60-yarder in Buffalo. From there I have kind of gotten more comfortable from that long range. The weather is good here, it's pretty warm, so it should be conducive to pretty long kicks. We'll see. Bottom line is, whenever a coach sends me out there, I expect to score. I hold myself to a very high standard. Whenever I get on the field, I'm expecting myself to score points for the team and help." 3. Part of his routine is picking out targets to aim for in his kicks. He did say Raymond James Stadium is pretty open and in the one time he kicked here last season, had to create his own target in the net. He now plans to go over to the stadium with Special Teams Coach Kaczor to pick out targets and familiarize himself with Tampa Bay's conditions. "I did get to kick here last year. Kicked well. Warmed up well. Had one of the best warm-ups all year here. It does get a little windy. There's two open ends. Both end zones are open. You have the pirate ship right there which is pretty cool. The biggest thing for me is having targets to pick out. I like to pick as small a target as possible. Here, it's pretty open like I said, so there's not much to look at. Last year in warm-ups, and during the game, I picked a small piece of the net, as small a square as I could see. Whether the wind was right to left, I'd pick a spot and that's big with me, just picking targets. So, familiarizing myself with Raymond James will be important. Coach Kaczor and I talked and I think during OTA's we are going to go to the stadium – it's right here, which is nice – and like I said, familiarize myself with the winds and with the targets and all that stuff." 4. He was college teammates with Bucs' wide receiver Adam Humphries at Clemson. He cited that he was looking forward to having a built-in golf partner in Tampa but the three-time All-ACC selection skirted the question when asked who the better golfer was. "Hump is a really good buddy of mine. I'll have a golfing buddy down here, which is nice. There's a lot of good golf down here. Me and him, we've had some battles [on the golf course]. Hump's a good player. He's got a really good swing so we'll see what happens when we get on the course here soon. But Hump's a great guy. Obviously, a heck of an athlete. He's one of the guys I really respect. He's a freaky athlete, he's got great feet, great balance. As a punt returner, I think he's done some great things here, too, special teams-wise. He's done some great things on receiver, too. Yeah, Hump's a great guy and I'm looking forward to being his teammate again." 5. He just got married to his wife, Mieke, on March 3. Both from South Carolina, the newlyweds were on their honeymoon until just a few days ago and Catanzaro was actually fielding calls from his agent while in St. Lucia. **"We got married March 3. Not much was going on at that point, but that was an amazing day. We had a day afterwards on that Sunday where we kind of just relaxed in Charleston and then we headed out to St. Lucia, which is awesome. We had a great time. I was hearing some things from my agent during that time. It's been a whirlwind, I don't even know what day it is today. But during the honeymoon, during the later part of the honeymoon, we got back Tuesday night, I started hearing things from Tampa. I got really excited. It's the Southeast, it's a great place to kick, a great organization that's on the rise. It's really on the cusp of greatness. We have a lot of talent here. We're a young team with guys I'm really familiar with, like 'Hump' [Adam Humphries] and those guys. So, I was pumped to hear from them. Then the day we got back, Wednesday, they arranged the flight here."
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