Brandon Coutu again battles Olindo Mare for Seahawks kicker

RENTON — Brandon Coutu learned to kick a football the same way he became a 9-handicap golfer.

Practice. Lots and lots of practice.

"I can seriously go to the golf range and hit balls for four hours straight and not even pick my head up," Coutu said.

That unrelenting repetition is the way he went from a high-scoring soccer player into a high-school kicking prospect in Georgia, beginning a transition from futbol to football.

"I'd spend Sunday afternoons kicking footballs for hours," Coutu said. "Not knowing that I probably shouldn't kick that much. But I didn't know that. I'd go out and spend hours and hours on end just to be good.

"I can definitely be a little obsessive."

That's good because all he's had in his NFL career so far is practice. Well, there were seven exhibition games in which he has made all but one field goal he has attempted, but he has spent a year in the NFL without ever suiting up for a regular-season game.

He was the other kicker last season, the one who spent the whole year on the Seahawks' roster without suiting up for a game.

That was a compliment to Coutu's ability. All he did was make every field goal he attempted in the exhibition season, showing enough promise the Seahawks wanted to keep their hooks in him even after coach Mike Holmgren chose veteran Olindo Mare and his booming kickoffs.

So the 24-year-old Coutu did what he has always done. He put his head down and he worked.

"I was happy to be here," Coutu said, "happy I was employed."

A year later, he's competing against the same player for the same job, but this time there's no safety net. Seattle's not going to carry two kickers again.

"That won't happen this year," president Tim Ruskell said. "We'll go with one guy."

Coutu wasn't someone the Seahawks were going to cast off. They'd chosen him in the seventh round of the draft, and he was accurate enough in the exhibition season that other teams were inquiring about the possibility of a trade.

"We were getting interest from other teams," Ruskell said. "It just didn't happen, and with the injuries we had enough room to keep him and it didn't hurt us."

Coutu remained on the roster through last season and came to compete for the job again. Now, he and Mare are in one of the closest competitions of this training camp with Coutu making four of the five field goals he has attempted. Mare has only attempted two field goals, missing them both, but he made 89 percent of his field-goal attempts in 2008.

Where does the competition currently stand?

"Very close," coach Jim Mora said.

How close? "Neck and neck," Mora said. "How about that?"

Both Seattle's kickers want a mulligan after Saturday night in Kansas City. Mare missed two field-goal attempts, one from inside of 30 yards, and had a kickoff bounce at about the 10-yard line. Coutu missed a 51-yarder in the third quarter and still doesn't have a touchback.

The kickoffs are the biggest difference between the two. Mare's leg makes a difference in field position as he logged 22 touchbacks in 71 kickoffs last season. Coutu worked with NFL veteran Morten Andersen the past two years, and has focused on strengthening his kickoffs.

More practice, the kind of repetitions that has him preparing for his second season in the NFL. Now, he's just got to get on the field.

"Seattle was the team that drafted me, took a chance on me," Coutu said. "I wanted to be able to prove that I could kick at this level and kick here. I was glad to be here and get another opportunity."

Notes

• WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh did not practice because of general soreness, Mora said.

• CB Marcus Trufant is not expected to practice this week. He remains on the physically-unable-to-perform list because of a disk injury in his back. He may not be ready for the season opener.