Buccaneers draft Utah kicker Matt Gay in 5th round

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — For the second time in four NFL drafts, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have selected one of the best kickers in college football.

They can only hope Utah’s Matt Gay, the 2017 Lou Groza Award winner, doesn’t turn out to be another Roberto Aguayo.

The Bucs took Gay early in the fifth round on Saturday, ending a string of five consecutive selections used to secure help for one of the league’s worst defenses.

In two college seasons, Gay set a school record with eight field goals of 50-plus yards and compiled the second-best career field goal percentage (86.2 in Utes’ history by converting 56 of 65 attempts.

Gay said the Bucs stayed in touch with him in the weeks leading up to the draft but never provided an indication that they had “extreme interest” in him. He said he thought he might be drafted in the sixth or seventh round, so he was surprised when the phone rang earlier than expected.

“I got a call, it was a Tampa number. I looked at the board and saw they were two picks away,” Gay said. “I was kind of like, ‘No way, not right now.’ It was amazing.”

Iowa defensive end Anthony Nelson was Tampa Bay’s first pick on the final day of the draft, landing with the Bucs in the fourth round after the club added linebacker Devin White, cornerbacks Sean Bunting and Jamel Dean, and safety Mike Edwards over the previous two days.

Gay played two years of soccer at Utah Valley before spending the past two at Utah, where he made all 40 of his extra points and was 30 of 34 on field goal attempts to win the Groza award as the nation’s top kicker in 2017.

Aguayo also was a Groza winner during a standout career at Florida State. The Bucs traded up 15 spots to select him in the second round of the 2016 draft, only to release him following a disappointing rookie season.

Gay will compete for a job with incumbent kicker Cairo Santos, who joined the Bucs early last season after one of the team’s key offseason acquisitions — Chandler Cantanzaro — got off to a slow start and was cut.

The addition of Nelson, the fifth pick of the fourth round, adds depth on the defensive line. He led Iowa in sacks with 7 1/2 two years ago and was second in the Big Ten with 9 1/2 as a junior in 2018.