CLEVELAND -- Zane Gonzalez was one of the most accurate kickers in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision during the 2016 season, but in his first year with the Cleveland Browns, he has struggled to find consistency.
Gonzalez has missed five of his 16 field goal tries as well as an extra-point attempt through the first 11 games of the regular season. And yet, the Browns have stuck with him, including after Sunday’s 30-16 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, where he missed his one of his four field goal tries.
“I feel confident about the game,” Gonzalez said. “I mean a miss is a miss, but I came back and made three of the four kicks. I felt good throughout the whole game responding wise.”
Gonzalez missed a 43-yarder wide left with just 14 seconds remaining in the first quarter.
The Browns were forced to attempt the 43-yarder because wide receiver Bryce Treggs was flagged 15 yards for taunting, which backed up a first-and-10 from Cincinnati’s 20-yard line to a second-and-26.
Following the miss, Gonzalez had a conversation with coach Hue Jackson, where he got a vote of confidence.
“It was awesome,” Gonzalez said. “He just came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I have confidence in you.’ He knows I am here. He knows I can do it. That was huge for me. After I made the 39-yarder in the second half, he came back up to me. Just having the head coach be there like that just goes a long way.”
After enduring several missed field goals from former Pro Bowl kicker Cody Parkey in 2016, the Browns selected Gonzalez with the 224th pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.
In four years with the Arizona State Sun Devils, Gonzalez converted an NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision record 96 of his 116 career field goal attempts (82.75 percent), as well as 204 of his 209 extra-point tries (97.6 percent) on the way to 492 points.
During the 2016 season, the 6-foot-1, 190-pound native of Deer Park, Texas, converted 23 of his 25 field goal tries (92.0 percent), including all 16 of his attempts from between 20 and 49 yards. Then, from 50 yards or more, Gonzalez converted seven of his nine tries, including a career long 59-yarder.
“It means a lot,” Gonzalez said. “It shows the faith that they have in me. This organization as a whole, they have done nothing but support, which is awesome. The fact that they were able to stick with me and have not brought anyone in to work out and all that just shows a lot of confidence.”
