If a Major League Baseball player gets three hits in four at-bats in a game, he’ll be feted for his stellar showing.
If an NBA player makes 75 per cent of his shots in a contest, he’ll get a pat on the back.
If a CFL quarterback completes three-quarters of his passes in a game, folks will credit him for his accuracy.
But when a kicker goes 3-for-4 on field-goal attempts in a game, well, he’ll face criticism for his inability to hit every try.
“It’s all part of the game,” Saskatchewan Roughriders kicker Tyler Crapigna said Tuesday after practice at Mosaic Stadium. “We’re getting paid to do this, so they’re expecting us to be 100 per cent 100 per cent of the time.
“There’s really no way around it. That’s my job, right? I go out there and kick field goals through the posts. There’s really no grey area: ‘Oh, he had a pretty good game.’ When it comes down to stuff like that, it’s kind of do or die.”
Crapigna went 3-for-4 for the Roughriders during Thursday’s 17-16 loss to the host Montreal Alouettes. Unfortunately for Crapigna and the Roughriders, his lone miss was on a 45-yard attempt on the game’s final play.
Not only did Crapigna not hit the three-pointer, but Als returner Stefan Logan got the ball out of the end zone to avoid a game-tying single.
“Everything felt good; it just sailed wide,” Crapigna said. “There’s not really much you can do. From 45 yards, it was still six or seven yards deep in the end zone, so it wasn’t a distance issue or anything. Sometimes you make them and sometimes you don’t. That’s what it came down to.”
Crapigna made 36 of his 42 field-goal attempts during the 2016 CFL season — his first as Saskatchewan’s No. 1 kicker. His success rate of 85.7 per cent was the fifth-best such mark in the league.
The 24-year-old product of Nepean, Ont., drilled his first three tries of the 2017 season in Montreal, connecting from 35, 41 and 18 yards.
After the Als took a 17-16 lead with 2:29 left in regulation time, the Roughriders put together a 12-play drive that moved them from their 26-yard line to Montreal’s 37.
The march included three successful third-down gambles, confusion on a play call that cost Saskatchewan precious seconds before it had to call a timeout, and, ultimately, a missed field goal.
It wasn’t the first time Crapigna had a game on his foot. He had come through before — three times in 2016, in fact — but not this time.
“As a kicker, my job is to make field goals,” he said. “That’s what I always want to do when I get the opportunity. I feel like I let the team down, not coming through in the end when they played hard all game.”
Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones noted that others had made gaffes before in the game. He pointed to Saskatchewan’s 12 penalties, two turnovers and questionable decision-making from the top down.
As Jones put it: “(Crapigna) is not the only one that made mistakes, including myself.”
Quarterback Kevin Glenn has seen his share of errors during a 17-year career — some that he even made himself. So Glenn was quick to offer his support for Crapigna after his final kick in Montreal.
“There have been times when I’m driving down the field and I’ve thrown an interception that seals the game,” Glenn said. “It’s the same kind of feeling he has, so I can understand that.
“No one’s perfect. He didn’t go out there to miss it on purpose. It was just wide right. There are a lot of other things that we could have done in that game to put ourselves in a situation where we didn’t have to do that. Understanding that and knowing that, the first thing that I did was support him. I went over to him, hugged him and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to get them next time. Keep your head up.’ ’’
Crapigna’s support system also was there for him. Family members had made the trip to Montreal to watch the game — and they had to watch as his bid to kick the game-winner drifted wide of the uprights.
Crapigna will seek redemption Saturday, when the Roughriders play host to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. That game also could give him a chance to get the final word with some of his detractors.
In the hours after the Montreal game, Crapigna got into it with a fan on Twitter who accused him of missing game-winning field goals “all the time.”
The CFL previously has fined players for their interactions with fans on social media platforms — for example, then-Roughriders quarterback Darian Durant was fined in 2013 for a tweet to a fan that contained inappropriate language — and Crapigna noted that he’s well aware that his attention should be elsewhere.
That said, he felt he had to stand up for himself before moving on.
“I don’t like when people don’t really know the facts,” Crapigna said. “If you know all the stats and you want to come at me, that’s perfectly fine.
“I’m a fan of different sports teams as well and I know that, when they don’t do as well as I want them to, I get a little fed up with that. I understand from (the fans’) perspective. But if you come at me, I feel like you’ve got to know what you’re talking about first.”
