Eddy Piñeiro focused on ‘little details’ in training camp: ‘I didn’t want to be average’
Eddy Piñeiro looked like he was lining up to kick a 40-yard field goal as the sun blazed across the Wofford College practice fields. But there was no football — just a marker where it would have been.
Piñeiro took three steps backward and two steps to his left, placing his right foot behind him, planting his left.
Before he could begin his run up, assistant special teams coach Devin Fitzsimmons whipped out a measuring tape and placed it on the ground between the tip of Piñeiro’s left foot and the marker.
Piñeiro looked down at the measuring tape, clapped his hands and fist-bumped Fitzsimmons.
Perfect.
“We want to be between 98 inches and 102 inches, so if I’m anywhere between that, that’s a good thing, that’s where I kick my best balls,” Piñeiro said. “You’re two or three inches off, and it completely will change the rotation on the ball.”
What kickers often make look easy is the result of striving for perfection, both in training camp and during the regular season — something Piñeiro is taking seriously in his second year with the Panthers.
An unconventional journey
For the first time in six years, Piñero doesn’t have anyone threatening to take his place on an NFL roster.
Piñeiro’s football journey is unconventional, and filled with adversity. Growing up a soccer player in Miami, he committed to Florida Atlantic University before an academic issue forced him to switch gears. Instead, he attended ASA College Miami, close to home.
While playing soccer at ASA, Piñeiro kicked for the football team. Recognizing he had a unique talent for nailing field goals and extra points, he worked with external coaches to refine his craft before attending Division I kicking camps.
In 2015, he found himself at an Alabama kicking camp in front of Nick Saban. Not only did he beat out every other kicker, he also received his first offer to play Division I football.
It was after another camp in Gainesville, Florida, during the same two-day stretch that would eventually land Piñeiro at the University of Florida in his home state, again after beating out every other kicker for the spot.
After a two-year career for the Gators, with whom in 2017 he had the best field-goal percentage in the country, he was picked up as an undrafted free agent by the Oakland Raiders in May 2018.
From there, he bounced to four different teams — the Chicago Bears, the Indianapolis Colts, the Washington Commanders and the New York Jets — and was placed on injured reserve twice, never fully able to hold on to a starting spot for more than one season.
What a difference a year makes. This year, Piñeiro is entering his second season with the Panthers as the team’s sole kicker.
“Obviously, it feels great,” Piñeiro said. “We’re working every day, and I try to have a mindset as if there is somebody trying to compete with me. It’s with myself this camp.”
Building on success
Piñeiro’s performance last season was impressive. He converted 33 of 35 field goals, including a career-long 54-yarder against the Cardinals in Week 4, and he missed only 2 of 32 extra-point attempts.
After originally signing a one-year deal on Sept. 1, 2022, as an injury replacement for Zane Gonzalez, Piñeiro re-signed with the Panthers in April on a two-year, $4.1 million contract.
Piñeiro didn’t attend camp last year due to his late signing date. In Spartanburg this year, he’s determined to focus on the details he wasn’t able to sharpen — details like the precise distance between his front toe and the ball before field goals.
“From my mindset last year, I really felt like I didn’t want to be average. I made a decision in my mind that I wanted to be different, I didn’t want to be like everybody else,” Piñeiro said. “In this camp we’ve really been working on all my steps. … There’s no such thing as perfect, but we’re trying to be as perfect as we possibly can.”
Piñeiro also said being the only kicker in camp has allowed him to focus on the little things he wasn’t able to focus on at other camps, where there have been three or four other kickers being evaluated at the same time.
“Being able to come out here and take a deep breath and actually work on things that I probably wouldn’t be working on if I was competing against somebody is another reason why I think I’m getting so much better this camp,” Piñeiro said. “I get to work on different things, and I can mishit a ball or miss a kick and be like, ‘OK, this is what I did wrong,’ and really break it down, instead of somebody competing, it’s just like, forget about that kick.”
With a revamped offense based around rookie quarterback Bryce Young, hope and optimism surround training camp this summer and the upcoming season. For Piñeiro, it’s the hope he can, at the very least, achieve as much success as he did in 2022.
“Being the only guy and being able to go into the season as of now, I can pay attention to little details that I haven’t in the past and coming off a good year,” Piñeiro said. “My goal is to repeat the same thing I did last year and be as consistent as I possibly can for the team.”
This story was originally published August 3, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
