A lot of kickers in Shayne Graham's position might have preferred a short field-goal attempt to ease their debut with a new team.
Not Graham, who said he didn't mind the 48-yarder he faced in the first quarter of the Ravens' 20-14 win against the Cleveland Browns on Saturday.
"It's easy to say, 'Yeah, I would've liked a shorter kick.' But it's a high-risk, high-reward type of industry that we're in," he said. "If you go out there and kick a long kick and you make it, the confidence builds and it's exponential – not only for yourself but also for your teammates and everything else. Then, not that every kick isn't a kick you have to focus with, but you just feel a little bit of a burden off of your shoulders when you make that longer kick to start off with."
Graham made the 48-yarder and a 43-yarder in the third quarter and both extra points, but four of his five kickoffs did not reach the end zone. Still, Graham earned a vote of approval from coach John Harbaugh.
"I thought it was good, especially on the field goals and the extra points," Harbaugh said. "He did a nice job of knocking it between the poles. It's not easy to do that, coming into a new operation. The kickoffs were adequate. It's not going to be a great kickoff day anyway. So I think he did a good job of that as well."