Rayner hedged a little more, but essentially stayed on the same page. "I don't know about 'accurate holder,' but he's a good holder. It's consistent. It's very smooth, he's got good hands, and it's a repetitive thing every time."

I asked Rayner if the holder could really affect things that much, and he shrugged as if the answer was obvious. "Without him being that good of a holder, Mike [Vanderjagt] doesn't set that record, obviously. I don't know how you quantify that, but I guess he was a big part of that success with the Colts for so many years."

So I followed up with Smith himself, and I started by asking about the basic assertion: is he the most accurate holder in the NFL?

"There's no question," he said. "Mike Vanderjagt is the most accurate kicker in NFL history, Adam Vinatieri is one of the most accurate and the most clutch, so I would argue that I'm one of the most clutch and accurate holders in NFL history." He stopped for a second, grinned. "And our kicker here -- whoever that turns out to be --is going to keep that going."

So what makes a hold "clutch" or "accurate"? Smith seemed happy to be asked. "A good hold makes as smooth of a transition for the kicker as possible. I catch the ball, get it down quickly with the laces out and it's a matter of, wherever the snap is, I give him the same product every time and that only comes from just work."

In the end, it comes down to the kicker, of course. "It's the kicker's job is to kick the ball well, I see it as, if I give him the same thing every time, it's all on him. And that's pretty much what I do, I focus on never doing something different, always doing the same thing."

Long snapper Ethan Albright told me something very similar last season about his legendary consistency -- the holders actually work with the Jugs machine to practice with bad and unusual snaps precisely because Albright is so consistent --which means that two of the three major moving parts in the field goal team are among the most reliable at their position. Whatever else happens with the kicking competition from here on out, it's going to be all about what the kickers do, not those other two.