By DANIEL BROWN / Mercury News

Michael Husted went out for his high school football team years ago because he had dreams of being a wide receiver. On the first day of practice, the coach asked the assembled players if anybody there could kick.

Husted, who also played on the soccer team, raised his hand. "Great, you're the kicker,'' the coach told him.

Thus, a future NFL career was born.

These days, kickers aren't such an afterthought. When Husted was a teenager in the 1980s, there were only a handful of kicking camps in the country. Now, there are legions of clinics and academies and skilled one-on-one instructors. Such increased attention at the youth level helps explain why the new generation of NFL kickers is suddenly treating 50-yarders like chip shots.

There have been 59 field goals this season of at least 50 yards. That's by far the most ever through Week 10 of an NFL season.

At that rate, the single-season record for 50-yarders, 66 set in 2008, will fall -- with plenty of distance to spare.

"We all practiced a lot this offseason, apparently,'' quipped David Akers, the 49ers kicker who is 5 for 5 from long range this season.

Not only are the NFL kickers stronger, but they're also more accurate. They have nailed 70.2 percent of their attempts from 50 yards or more, the best mark in any season in which there were multiple attempts, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Such precision would have been unthinkable a generation ago: Jan Stenerud, the only pure kicker in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, connected on just 17 of 64 career attempts from 50 yards and beyond (26.6 percent). The 49ers were in the league for 14 years before getting their first 50-plus-yarder (by Tommy Davis in 1964.)

How to explain the surge?

Husted and another former NFL kicker, Mike Hollis, pointed to the era of specialization and a better understanding of biomechanics. Long gone are the days when kickers also played another position (Lou "The Toe" Groza and Jerry Kramer were offensive linemen) or plucked from the soccer field simply because they had strong legs.

"Everyone is taking the fundamentals a lot more seriously,'' said Hollis, who now operates ProForm kicking in Jacksonville, Fla.

Hollis also noted the evolution of the soccer-style technique first popularized by Pete Gogolak, who played in the NFL from 1964-74. Before Gogolak, kickers approached the ball straight on and booted it with their toe. Gogolak took angled approaches and kicked it with his instep, just as he did while playing soccer in his native Hungary.

Gogolak and other placekicking pioneers of that style would start out wide, maybe three longs step off the ball.

The problem, Hollis said, is that starting out wide meant kickers had to twist their hips violently at the point of contact - "aggressive torquing,'' he called it - to generate enough power for long-distance kicks. Too often, they pulled it wide. As Husted said: "They were coming across the hips instead of through the hips."

Hollis, who led the NFL in scoring while with the Jaguars in 1997, teaches his kickers to stand only two natural steps off the ball. Kickers no longer need a violent torque of the hips because their legs are strong enough to handle the load.

"Now, it's a very fluid, down-the-field kind of thing,'' he said.

Husted blasted 142 career field goals for the Buccaneers, Raiders, Redskins and Chiefs before founding HustedKicking in San Diego, as well as the National camp Series, which prepares specialists for college football.

His organization emphasizes "position-specific strength,'' which embraces weight training only to a point. "You can't go in there and squat 405 pounds,'' he said. "You have to maintain flexibility. And you have to have a good core. The goal is being able to transfer your energy into the ball."

This year, kickers are flexing their muscles on game day. No 49ers kicker had ever made more than two 50-yarders in a season before Akers came along to hit five -- with seven games left to play.

Still, he might not even be the most potent kicker in the Bay Area. The Raiders' Sebastian Janikowski hit three 50-plus yarders in a single game earlier this season. He also tied an NFL record with a 63-yarder against Denver in the season opener.

"You don't have to kill the ball to hit it from 50 yards because guys are just stronger,'' Akers said. "It's like anything else -- guys are bigger, faster, stronger across the game."

Bob Grotz / The Mercury Journal

PHILADELPHIA – Whatever David Akers had, Alex Henery has it.

Andy Reid, too.

The Eagles thought they resolved their kicking issues when they parted ways with Akers, who last January missed two big field goal attempts in the 5-point playoff loss to – all together now – the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers.

Akers was a mess Sunday. He pushed a 44-yard field goal attempt wide left and had a 45-yard attempt snuffed by King Dunlap after sneaking in a 37-yarder, the only points of the first half for the San Francisco 49ers.

Fourth-round pick Henery had to be wondering if that kicker across the field really was the all-time Eagles leader in points, field goals and scientific explanations that visceral fans explain in four-letter words.

Henery had made 8 of 9 field goal attempts, including three against the Niners, before lining up a 39-yarder in the final frame.

That one, however, went wide right.

Before Henery knew it he was looking at a 33-yarder that would have provided the Eagles a 26-17 lead.

Wide right again.

“I’ve never missed two in a game,” Henery said. “They were on different hashes and I thought I had the second one but I pushed it and didn’t get my hip through.”

Before you could say, we can all count, those field goals would have helped, the Niners marched the ball 77 yards in eight plays for the decisive touchdown, a 12-yard run by Frank Gore.

Guess who put up the winning point?

“This win with this team just shows the grit of this team,” Akers said of the Niners, now 3-1. “We lost a close game with the Cowboys and then to be able to pound the ball and win this one is special.”

The Sporting News

San Francisco 49ers kicker David Akers admitted to a federal grand jury in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday that he lost $3.7 million in an investment deal gone bad.

Akers, a 36-year-old veteran who spent the majority of his career with the Philadelphia Eagles, invested in Austin’s Triton Financial from 2007 to 2009, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

By JEFF McLANE / Philadelphia Inquirer

About a month before the Eagles selected Nebraska's Alex Henery in the fourth round of the NFL draft - likely signaling the end of David Akers' 12-year run with the franchise - the Pro Bowl performer dreamed that the team would take a kicker.

A friend already had told him about a similar premonition. Moments after last season ended, Akers predicted that he had played his last game with the Eagles. But the dream seemed all too real.

Akers told his wife, Erika, who found it amusing. But on April 30, the Eagles made his dream come true. Akers was coaching his son's youth football team when his agent, Jerrold Colton, called with the news.

"My wife wasn't at the game, so I called her and said, 'Eagles drafted a kicker,' " Akers said Monday after a workout at Power Train Sports in Cherry Hill. These were his first public comments since the draft.

"And she said, 'That's an answer to a prayer.' But I don't have an answer as to what it means."

He has a pretty good idea.

"Right now, I don't think I'm going to be back," Akers said. "It's pretty much that when you see a kicker drafted high. The writing's on the wall."

Eagles coach Andy Reid declined to address Akers' future with the team after the draft. Reid had never drafted a kicker, mainly because Akers made it unnecessary. But the 36-year-old Akers is a free agent, and because of the NFL lockout, the free-agent market has yet to open. So the Eagles decided that it was time to add a young kicker.

They had placed the transition tag on the kicker in February. That provision would have given the Eagles the right of first refusal if other teams tried to sign Akers. But he declined to sign the tag.

"There's more to it than just the simplicity of 'signed it or didn't sign it,' " Akers said. "We don't know if there's even going to be a tag in the new collective bargaining agreement."

Michael Vick signed the Eagles' franchise tag, but the quarterback is guaranteed a one-year contract if the league retains the same rules in a new agreement.

In December, the Eagles and Akers talked about a contract extension. The team offered a deal that would have made him one of the five highest-paid kickers in the NFL, but Akers passed, according to league sources.

He went on to have one the best regular seasons of his career. Akers connected on 32 of 38 field-goal attempts, booted a career-best 23 touchbacks on kickoffs, and was voted to the Pro Bowl for the fifth time. But he missed two makeable field-goal tries in the Eagles' 21-16 playoff loss to the Packers.

"We can all count," Reid said after the game. "Those points would have helped."

Later it was learned that Akers had more than football on his mind. His daughter, Halley, was about to have a cancerous ovary removed in surgery. On Monday, Akers said that his daughter is fine and now cancer-free.

Still, he does not know where his future lies. There are a number of teams that could use a kicking upgrade, including the NFC East's Cowboys, Redskins, and Giants. Akers did not rule out the possibility of staying in Philadelphia.

"Whether it's time to get out of here and get into a new setting, I'm open to anything," Akers said. "My ego is not like, 'OK, I can't be here with somebody.' If they want me and we can work everything out, then absolutely."

Henery, who handled placekicking and punting, did not kick off in college. When Akers first came to the Eagles, he kicked off and attempted long field-goal tries while Norm Johnson took care of most of the placekicking duties. But Akers believes he has a number of good years left as a team's primary kicker, especially after the NFL moved kickoffs up to the 35-yard line.

Akers is the franchise leader in games played (189) and the only player left on the Eagles' roster to arrive before Reid - he was signed days before the coach was hired in January 1999. The kicker said he did not talk with Reid when the lockout was briefly lifted during the draft. Akers said he did speak with special teams coordinator Bobby April that Friday.

April gave no indication that the Eagles were thinking about drafting a kicker the next day, Akers said.

"I have nothing but good things to say about the Eagles organization," said Akers, who has seen his share of other longtime Eagles, such as Brian Dawkins, leave the team. "I've seen it happen. But I can't hold it against them. It's their company, their decision."

Football News Now

Philadelphia Eagles kicker David Akers may be out of Philadelphia, but not the NFC East.

According to Sports Illustrated's Don Banks, the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins are plausible landing spots for the five-time Pro Bowler.

“Given the challenges the Cowboys and Redskins have had with kickers in recent years,” Banks writes, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Akers wound up somewhere else in the NFC East, facing his old team twice a year.”

Akers has spent the past 13 years in Philadelphia, but refused to sign the transition tag the Eagles extended to him in February. The team responded by selecting Nebraska kicker Alex Henery in the fourth-round (120th overall), the earliest a kicker taken since 2006, all but signaling the end of Aker’s time with the Eagles.

The Cowboys 75-percent field goal conversion rate was good for 30th in the NFL in 2010, while the Redskins 69-percent put them dead last. Both teams tied for 17th in the league with 24 field goals made.

The Eagles finished third with 32 makes, converting 84-percent of their attempts.

Ashley Cox / Philadelphia Inquirer Sports Columnist

It is a risky business, this discarding of players before their expiration dates hit. The Eagles pride themselves in being ahead of the curve in evaluating the endgame of a player's usefulness. Many times, they have been right.

But when they have been wrong, boy, have they been wrong.

Andy Reid this time is banking on being right when it comes to the placekicker position. By selecting Nebraska's Alex Henery in the fourth round on Saturday, Reid essentially signaled the end of David Akers' 12-year career here. The Eagles will not keep two kickers on their 2011 roster, if there is a 2011 roster, and they certainly will not be willing to scratch Henery a check for the $450,000 roster bonus he would be due in the event they cut him.

So Akers is out, Henery is in. Era over. Thanks for playing.

Akers got the news right before he was to coach one of his son's flag football games on Saturday. He was not as blindsided as Donovan McNabb was in 2007 when the Eagles, without warning, used their first pick to select Kevin Kolb, but the message to Akers nonetheless was clear. Akers did not want to talk about it on Sunday, but he knows that whenever next season begins, if it begins, he will be playing elsewhere.

It is a reality that those who have come before Akers have had to accept. The Eagles make no exceptions. Ask McNabb, or Brian Westbrook, or Troy Vincent, or Brian Dawkins, or countless others. It does not matter how many Pro Bowls or NFC championship games you've been to or how much the fans love you, when the franchise determines that it is time, you must go.

Akers is simply the latest in a long line. Some players, like Jeremiah Trotter, have left in tears. Others, like McNabb, have left in defiance. All undoubtedly have wanted to make the Eagles regret their decision, not that Reid or Joe Banner would ever admit to being wrong.

But they have been wrong, both about the player they were showing the door and the one they had named as successor.

Dawkins is one example. The Eagles let him walk via free agency in 2009, even though there was not a proven player available to take Dawkins' place. Quintin Demps took the first-team reps through minicamps and training camp, but he lost the job to rookie Macho Harris, a fifth-round pick from Virginia Tech, by Week 1 of the season. Harris was underwhelming in eight starts, and Sean Jones was not much better. Neither made the roster in 2010.

Dawkins, meanwhile, became the leader of Denver's young defense. It took on his personality, playing with aggression and abandon, and Dawkins' efforts, including two interceptions and a forced fumble, earned him an eighth career Pro Bowl invitation.

Last year, the Eagles drafted Nate Allen 37th overall and anointed him the starting free safety. He played reasonably well until rupturing the patella tendon in his right knee in December. Another rookie, seventh-round pick Kurt Coleman, finished up the season. The Eagles were so impressed they went out and selected Temple safety Jaiquawn Jarrett with the 54th overall pick in this draft.

On Friday, Reid said of Jarrett: "It's not fair to compare him to Brian Dawkins," and then he did precisely that. "They're the same stature, size, same speed, and they both will torch you," Reid said. "[They're] different personalities, different guys, but I don't think you want to run over the middle on either one of them. They'll both blow you up."

Maybe so, but suffice it to say the Eagles are still trying to replace Dawkins.

They're still trying to replace Sheldon Brown, too. Last offseason, the Eagles traded Brown to Cleveland, and handed over his starting cornerback job to Ellis Hobbs, who was coming off neck surgery. Sure enough, in addition to getting burned by Tennessee wide receiver Kenny Britt, Hobbs ended the season on injured reserve with a neck injury.

Brown played all 16 games of the 2010 season for the Browns, just as he had in five of his previous six seasons in Philadelphia. He was as reliable and tough as there was, and the Eagles let him go, too.

In 2010, the 36-year-old Akers was 31 of 35 (88.6 percent) on field goals from inside the 50-yard line, and his 32 overall field goals and 143 points were the second-best single-season output in franchise history, behind Akers' record-setting performance in 2008. Akers had a career-high five touchbacks against Tennessee in October, made 13 of 14 field goals in November to earn NFC special teams player of the month honors, and in December executed an onside kick midway through the fourth quarter that helped propel the Eagles to a dramatic victory over the New York Giants.

Akers' detractors will point to two missed field goals against Green Bay in the playoffs for reason enough to let him go, but before that he had only missed five field goals in 17 postseason games.

Maybe Henery will be that strong. He finished his Nebraska career as the most accurate kicker in NCAA history. His only miss as a senior was on a 51-yarder that was blocked, and he hit 10 from 40 yards out.

But Henery did not handle kickoffs during his career for the Huskers. That duty was handled by a player named Adi Kunalic. Maybe Kunalic can help replace Akers, too, or maybe the Eagles were right. They'd better hope so, because when they are wrong, they are really wrong.

Yardbarker.com report

In the fourth round of the 2011 NFL draft, the Philadelphia Eagles selected one of the last players anybody expected them to select. They drafted a kicker.

But before you make any judgments on Alex Henery, let’s just understand one thing: Henery is no ordinary kicker.

In fact, he is the most accurate kicker in NCAA history. He made 18 of 19 field goals in 2010, with the only miss being a blocked 51-yard field goal. He made 21 of 22 career kicks between 40 and 49 yards, and 5 of 11 from above 50 yards, including a school-record game-winning 57-yarder.

He ended his college career by kicking 63 of 65 field goals from fewer than 50 yards.

He also punted for the last two years of his career at Nebraska, averaging 42.2 yards per punt.

Henery is the best kicker to come out of college in years and he sounds like the absolute perfect fit for the Philadelphia Eagles.

But there’s one minor problem. The Eagles already have a kicker, and a pretty good one.

David Akers has earned five Pro Bowl selections in 12 years with the Eagles, including each of the last two years.

He’s 36 years old and could still kick for a few more seasons at the professional level, especially since he’s shown no signs of slowing down.

But I don’t think the Eagles will keep Akers in 2011. He’s as good as gone with the team.

Akers has had a reputation, and I believe it’s a fair reputation, for not being able to make the clutch kick when it matters. When the game is on the line, he usually succeeds. But it’s the kicks when the games are still within reach that Akers misses.

It’s the two field goals, both relatively short, against the Green Bay Packers in the Eagles’ 21-16 wild-card loss of this past season that would have kept the team’s season alive and set up a road game in Chicago.

It’s a field goal and an extra point that Akers missed against the Arizona Cardinals in the 2008 NFC championship game that could have resulted in the Eagles winning the game.

Don’t forget that Akers is also 36. He’ll be 37 during next year. He can’t kick forever. When a guy like Henery is available, a guy who can kick for the team for the next 15 seasons, it’s wise to draft him.

Akers was already offered the transition tag and he hasn’t signed yet. He practically stated after the playoff game against Green Bay that he doesn’t think he’ll be back with the team next season.

I’m not even sure if he wants to be back and I think this seals it.

A team doesn’t draft a kicker, especially the most accurate one in college history, in the fourth round if they plan on cutting him. A team also doesn’t keep two kickers. They might for a year, like the Eagles did in 1999 when they had Norm Johnson and David Akers, but that’s more of a transition period, and it’s usually obvious to the team which kicker will stay and which will go.

The rumor around Philadelphia is that the Eagles will let Henery do kickoffs and keep Akers for field goals. While I think that’s possible, I don’t think the Eagles will want to do that, out of respect for Akers, who certainly won’t want to see his workload cut in half.

Akers can still kick and he’ll get an opportunity to prove it next season. I just don’t think it will be for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Alex Henery is the kicker of the future.