Michael Rothstein, ESPN Staff Writer 10y

Nate Freese searching for consistency

ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Throughout training camp and the regular season, throughout all of his inconsistencies so far, Detroit Lions kicker Nate Freese has remained remarkably consistent in one thing.

He says none of this is actually affecting his confidence. Not the two misses Sunday against Carolina. Not the miss in the season opener against New York. Not his head coach, Jim Caldwell, saying the Lions are going to look at all options when it comes to their kicker.

"Just like I always say, I'm never too high, I'm never too low," Freese said Monday. "I go into this week as any other week. I put the game behind me, behind me, and I look forward to next week."

Freese said he opened up a little bit on his first missed 49-yard field goal as he tried to play the wind. He wanted to play it a little right. It stayed and went wide right. He said he hit the second field goal attempt well, but a wind gust caught it and he didn't account for the wind as much as he should have.

The two misses led to more questions again about Freese's status with the team and he said he wasn't concerned that the Lions might contemplate bringing in other kickers to try out this week.

He is, though, disappointed with how he has started his career.

"Yeah," Freese said. "But at the same time, it's not how you start, it's how you finish. So I got to keep moving forward and keep working hard."

Freese said he needs to work on his consistency and "get little tweaks here and there," although he did not go into specifics about what, exactly, is wrong with his game. This has been unusual for Freese, who did not miss a field goal his senior year in college.

As he works through it, at least one Lions player offered support to him as he tries to remedy his current kicking woes.

"I talked to him throughout the course of the game," linebacker Stephen Tulloch said. "I said you know what, he's going to win the game for us. Obviously, he's shaken up a little bit, missed the first kick last week, missed two this week.

"But that's not going to define him and his career. He's a rookie. He'll learn from it. He'll get better. We have a good coaching staff that will work on it with him. I'm all behind him. This locker room is behind him. We're encouraging him and we're behind him."

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