Kickin' it

If this is it for the man, there will be no glib jibes about the march of time in these precincts. No clichés about how you can't outrun (or outkick, in this case) the calendar. No banalities about how the years pile up on a man no matter what sly schemes or magic elixirs he employs.

There will only be this: A tale of two men in two places on one Sunday afternoon, and what the ancients said about the fleeting nature of glory.

Out in Denver, see, a man swung his leg as time expired and became the king of Chicago 53 yards later, his third (and game-winning) field goal of 48 yards or longer on the day. In Nashville, meanwhile, another man missed two more extra points, continuing a horrendous start to the season that has seen him miss five of his eight kicks so far, extra points and field goals.

The first man is Eddie Pineiro, the survivor of a zany cattle call that saw the Bears run 10 kickers through training camp in either a tribute to the Democratic debates or the latest season of the Bachelorette.

And the second man?

That would be Adam Vinatieri, the greatest placekicker in NFL history, who may or may not be announcing his retirement today.

Eddie Pineiro is 24 years old. Adam Vinatieri is 46. Together, they stand this morning at the opposite poles of fame, how it finds a man and then leaves him now matter how long he's managed to keep it around. Particularly if his job involves kicking extra points and field goals in the NFL.

Eddie Pineiro undoubtedly will find out about that sometime down the road, when that game-winning kick ricochets off a goalpost or sails wide instead of truer than a mother's love. Adam Vinatieri is just now finding out about it, even if it's taken almost a quarter century.

Quite simply, the man has had a run no one ever has in a sport that so pitilessly uses up its assets, particularly if you're a placekicker. One week you're Eddie Pineiro and they're toasting you all up and down Rush Street; the next, you doink a couple and you're Eddie Munster. Or, to reverse the process: One week you're tending bar, the next you're kicking field goals for the Atlanta Falcons.

That was the backstory of a guy named Tim Mazzetti, back in the late 1970s. Signed by the Falcons in 1978, he made 13-of-16 field goals that season, including a team-record 11 in a row and four game-winners as the Falcons made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

Three years later the Falcons cut him in training camp. So it goes.

Except, of course, for Vinatieri, who's been hanging with the glory so long half his teammates in the Colts locker room were in the womb when he started with the Patriots in 1996. John Elway and Dan Marino and Emmitt Smith were still playing; Peyton Manning, who played 17 seasons in the NFL himself before retiring three years ago, was still a junior at Tennessee.

And still Vinatieri is kicking, though no longer well. And if that is indeed age catching up with him (to, OK, indulge one lame cliché), it's taken its own sweet time doing so. And that is a credit to the man's sustained excellence, whose like at his position we may never see again.

In other words: Enjoy it while it lasts, Eddie. Because it never lasts forever.