Lawrence Tynes, the Greenock-born American footballer, is on the brink of carving out his own niche in United States sporting history by becoming the first Scot to finish a season as top scorer in one of the country's major sports.
Having turned his talented right foot from soccer to American football while at high school in Florida, the New York Giants' kicker currently leads the scoring charts with 137 points, having made 33 of his 38 field goal attempts and all 38 of his point-after-touchdown kicks.
His nearest challenger, the New England Patriots' kicker Stephen Gostowski is nine points adrift on 128 points with just three matches left of the regular season. If Tynes was to average 10 points in those three matches, starting with Sunday's match with Atlanta Falcons, he would break the all-time NFL scoring record for a player not scoring a touchdown. David Akers, the San Francisco 49ers' kicker set a record of 166 points just last season.
Tom Coughlin, the notoriously hard-to-please Giants' head coach, would argue that he would rather his team be scoring more touchdowns than field goals but the Super Bowl champions remain on course for the play-offs.
Tynes, a Celtic fan during his time in Scotland, is already eyeing the Giants' franchise record of 148 points set by Jay Feely in 2005 and, if he manages to stay ahead of the pack and finish the NFL's top scorer at the end of the month, he will be the first Giants player to achieve the feat since Don Chandler back in 1963.
The 34-year-old initially had a difficult time winning the Giants' supporters over when he arrived from Kansas City Chiefs but he is now on course to become arguably the club's greatest kicker. He already is the only NFL player to have made two overtime game-winning kicks to win the NFC Championship game and send his team to the Super Bowl.
Tynes has taken a methodical approach to his season and is more than happy with the contribution he has made. He details his success simply as the reward for hard work, but more pertinently he has also built a good relationship with snapper Zak DeOssie and holder Steve Weatherford.
"I try and make every kick in practice. I do the same thing in practice as I do in a game so I feel like if I'm kicking well in practice and pre-game, I feel it carries over," he said. "I feel I have a good relationship with Steve and Zak and this is the first time in my career I have had the same two guys [in consecutive seasons]. That's a really big part of it. When you have the same players and a consistency with the snapper and the holder, it just makes you that bit more confident."
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