Countdown To Camp: Gano vs Rackers

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Training camp starts in a few days, marking the third year of the Shanahan era. With each new training camp comes a new batch of questions regarding the team.  As training camp approaches, we will examine some of these questions.

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Will Rackers Oust Gano?

In 2011, Mike Shanahan brought former Pro-Bowler Shayne Graham to training camp in order to give Graham Gano some competition.  Shanahan was hoping that having a veteran kicker pushing his younger one would help strengthen Gano's character.  (or it was a test to see if Gano should even be the kicker).

That experiment by Shanahan failed miserably.  Shayne Graham would have possibly lost the kicker job to a regular position player by the way he kicked, shanking preseason field goals and being cut soon after.

This year, Shanahan is up to his old tricks.  This time the kicker is Neil Rackers, fantasy football super-hero, former Pro-Bowler, and finalist for NFL's sexiest man a few years back.  While Graham kicked 6 field goals for 2 different teams last season, Rackers was the Texans main man hitting 32 of 38.

Rackers is an upgrade from Shayne Graham, although he is also on the down side of his career.  He is a pretty accurate kicker and he still has the leg to kick 50 yarders.  But so Does Gano.

The job is Gano's to lose, and if he thinks it will be anything like last year he is very wrong.  This could be the most interesting position battle of camp...