Twelve-year-old Tyler Enos has already learned that football is a game of inches.
By the slightest of margins, the OLPH seventh-grader qualified for the NFL Punt, Pass & Kick national finals, which will be held Saturday at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The competition will take place before the Falcons’ NFC playoff game against the Green Bay Packers, which airs on Fox and is scheduled to start at 8 p.m.
Boys and girls ages 6-15 will compete separately in five two-year age groups. Winners will be announced at a special presentation on the field at the end of the third quarter.
Finley Stadium was home to Enos’s first two competitions this year, the second being a sectional in the Tennessee Titans market. Qualifiers were from Tennessee, Arkansas and Southern Kentucky with the top four getting to move on to the Team Championship at LP Field in Nashville.
Under “Competition Rules” at nflppk.com it reads: “Each participant is allowed one punt, one pass and one place-kick as part of his or her competition. Scores are based on both distance and accuracy. … A participant’s final score is his or her cumulative total [in feet and inches] for the three individual events.”
Enos advanced 342.2 to 342.1 over the nearest competitor.
“My second year, when I was 9, I lost by three feet,” he said. “This year I beat a kid by one inch.”
At the Team Championship level, Enos breezed through the 12-13 competition on Oct. 24 when the Titans hosted the Philadelphia Eagles. His total distance that day ended up outmeasuring those in the boys’ 14-15 age group. His total was good enough to rank in the top four nationally in his age group, which earned him the berth in the nationals.
“He’s pretty consistent in punting and kicking,” said Richard West, sports coordinator for Chattanooga’s Parks & Recreation Department and the local PP&K organizer. “His throwing will be the key. I think it will help him being in the Dome. As long as he can keep his nerves calm and he concentrates, I think he has a shot at winning.”
Enos said he enjoys playing basketball, baseball and soccer, but football is his favorite sport. At 5-foot-9 and 147 pounds, he plays guard and linebacker. He’s particularly fond of linebacker.
Enos admits to being more of a college football fan than an NFL fan, but there are two pro football teams he roots for. One is the Titans, whom he will be representing Saturday. The other is the Baltimore Ravens, and for one reason.
“Ray Lewis,” he said. “The Titans are like my favorite team. I just like Ray Lewis.”
Enos and his father, Terry, arrived in Atlanta on Thursday. Dinners were arranged Thursday night and tonight for the particpants with special guests due to attend. Today’s schedule includes a visit to the Georgia Aquarium.
Saturday will be Tyler’s first trip to the Georgia Dome, where he’ll become the third from the Chattanooga area to take part in a PP&K national final. The others were Damon Duval, who finished third in 14-15 in the mid-1990s when the event was at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, and Ryan Moore, the 12-13 champion in 1999 at a New York Jets game.
With Camp Jordan Park located behind where he lives, Tyler has spent countless hours there practicing for this moment. With his father and grandfather, Joe Enos, as his advisors, Tyler said his strategy is in place.
“Whether I’m throwing, punting or kicking, I’m not going to try to do it as hard as I can but as accurate as I can,” Tyler said. “It’s really a matter of being accurate because they take off if you’re not.
“I’m just going to try and think like I’ll be doing it in my back yard.”