Fellow Female Kicker Says NFL Combine Competitor Lauren Silberman Was 'Terrible'
She was the first woman to ever participate in the try out.
Today the most famous female kicker in the US — former Division I kicker Katie Hnida — had a rough criticism of Silberman's try out in an interview with Mike Garafolo of USA Today:
"Her performance does not have to do with her gender, it has to do with her experience and her preparation. Unfortunately, what's going to happen now is she's going to be looked at (as inferior) because she was female.
"But she was terrible."
According to Garafolo, Silberman appeared to not know what she was doing. She took no warm-ups kicks and didn't take the correct number of steps back before her kickoffs.
Three other kickers who were trying out told USA Today that Silberman came up to them before the event and asked them how far behind the ball she should be lining up.
So even though Silberman was the first female to try out, all signs indicate that she was never really a serious threat to make the NFL. Said Hnida:
"It is disappointing. I hoped she would go out and do justice for an NFL tryout, because there are lots of people who have dreamed of going to the NFL. It should be something serious."
Silberman paid $275 to try out, so she had the right to take it however seriously as she wanted to. She told NFL Network before the event that she was "expecting to have fun and meet interesting people."
Here's the video of Silberman's kickoff: