Wheelers' Pearson hoping to get his kicks

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By Eric Page | Thursday, June 26, 2008 8:47 PM CDT | () comments

At some point during tonight’s game against the Green Bay Blizzard, between taking the field for kickoffs and extra points, little-used Quad-City Steamwheelers place-kicker Derek Pearson might be reminded of what it’s like to kick field goals.

No one in the af2 has made more 3-pointers than Green Bay’s Bob Forstrom, who also has the league’s most accurate foot, having made 14 of 31 attempts. Meanwhile, no one in the league has made fewer field goals than Pearson, who is 0-for-5 with only one attempt from inside 50 yards and zero attempts since May 10.

Kicking it away just isn’t something in which Q-C coach Troy Biladeau believes.

“He’s capable of hitting field goals,” Biladeau said of Pearson, a Division I-AA All-American at Central Connecticut State in 2005 who played last season for the Central Valley Coyotes.

“I just feel like they’re going to return the ball. We’ve got guys blocking, and now they’re going to have to cover a kick. You figure they’re going to get the ball anyway, why not risk going for it? I tend to be a little more risky.”

Since Pearson’s last field-goal attempt — a 54-yarder in a loss at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton — Biladeau twice has elected to go for it with the Wheelers facing fourth-and-long inside their 10-yard line. Both times he sent Pearson onto the field first before switching in the offense; both times the offense came through, got the first down and scored a play later.

“Coach Biladeau looks at field goals as a bonus,” Pearson said with a shrug. “We haven’t attempted hardly any all year.”

Forstrom in Green Bay, really, is an anomaly. Field goals traditionally don’t carry much weight in the arena game. Made PATs and well-placed kickoffs are what earn a player his paycheck. There, Pearson has been … well … inconsistent at best.

“You want a guy to hit 80 to 85 percent of his extra points. That’s one thing, and then to hit the net on kickoffs,” Biladeau said. “He has struggled with that. It’s a mental thing, because he does it in practice, and he does it, at times, in the games.

“Kickers are a different bunch. They’re, ah … I don’t think any coach can figure out their kicker. You can tell him, ‘Hit the net,’ but there is obviously more that goes into it than that.”

Lately, Pearson has been finding the back net on kickoffs more frequently, which he says is a result of slowing down his approach. But his PAT accuracy, 83 percent last season in Central Valley and 78 percent through seven games this year, has dipped to 69 percent the past five games.

A new long-snapper has made things interesting at times, but Pearson says it’s on him to put it through the uprights.

“I’m a golfer. Kicking and golf are very similar,” he said. “It’s basically a matter of keeping your head down and kicking through the ball, just like swinging through the ball in golf.”

A 24-year-old New Jersey native, Pearson works as a personal trainer in Connecticut in the offseason. He says he plans to stick with arena football as long as he has a place to play.

“I love doing what I do,” he said. “There is a lot of stuff I know I have to work on. Right now, I’m not consistent, especially kickoffs. That’s got to be my focus.”

Eric Page can be contacted at (563) 383-2277 or epage@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.