Jeffrey Robin Chandler (born June 18, 1979) is an American former college and professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player who was a

placekicker Placekicker, or simply kicker (PK or K), is the player in gridiron football who is responsible for the kicking duties of field goals and extra points. In many cases, the placekicker also serves as the team's kickoff specialist or punter. Spe ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) for three seasons during the early 2000s. Chandler played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

for the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

, where he became the all-time leading scorer with 368 points. Thereafter, he played professionally for the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

Carolina Panthers The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. T ...

and

Washington Redskins The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...

of the NFL.

Early years

Chandler was born in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

.Pro-Football-Reference.com, Players
Jeff Chandler
Retrieved March 16, 2011. He attended

Mandarin High School Mandarin High School (MHS) is a public high school in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. It was established in 1990 and is part of the Duval County Public Schools district. As of 2010, it is the second-largest high school in Duval County fol ...

in Jacksonville,databaseFootball.com, Players
Jeff Chandler
. Retrieved March 16, 2011. where he played kicker and wide receiver for the Mandarin Mustangs high school football team.GatorZone.com, Football History, 2001 Roster
Jeff Chandler
. Retrieved March 20, 2011. Chandler was also a standout

letterman Letterman may refer to: * Letterman (sports), a classification of high school or college athlete in the United States People * David Letterman (born 1947), American television talk show host ** ''Late Night with David Letterman'', talk show that ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

College career

Chandler attended the

in Gainesville, Florida, where he joined coach

Steve Spurrier Stephen Orr Spurrier (born April 20, 1945) is an American former American football, football quarterback and coach who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 10 seasons before coaching for 38 years, primarily in college. He is often ...

Florida Gators football The Florida Gators football program represents the University of Florida (UF) in American college football. Florida competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division of ...

program as a walk-on in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, kicking one

extra point The conversion, try (American football, also known as a point(s) after touchdown, PAT, or (depending on the number of points) extra point/2-point conversion), or convert (Canadian football) occurs immediately after a touchdown during which the sc ...

and later being granted a

redshirt Redshirt, Red Shirt, or Redshirts may refer to: Entertainment * ''Red Shirts'' (film), a 1952 film about Anita Garibaldi by Franco Rossi * Redshirt (stock character), originally derived from ''Star Trek'', a stock character who dies soon after b ...

for the remainder of the 1997 season. He subsequently played for the Gators from

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

,
2011 Florida Gators Football Media Guide
'', University Athletic Association, Gainesville, Florida, pp. 85, 89, 97, 101, 103, 151, 159, 162, 180 (2011). Retrieved August 28, 2011. and was rewarded with an athletic scholarship after the

season. He successfully completed sixty-seven of eighty

field goal A field goal (FG) is a means of scoring in gridiron football. To score a field goal, the team in possession of the ball must place kick, or drop kick, the ball through the goal, i.e., between the uprights and over the crossbar. The entire ba ...

attempts in his career, and 167 of 180 attempted extra points after touchdowns (PATs). Chandler was the Gators' all-time career leader in field goals completed, first in PATs made, and second in field goal percentage (83.8 percent). He ranks second in

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...

(SEC) history in scoring with 368 points, fourth in league history in field goals made and second in field goal percentage. He kicked his career long field goal of fifty-four yards in the Gators' 34–23 victory of the rival

Georgia Bulldogs The Georgia Bulldogs are the athletic teams that represent the University of Georgia. The female athletic teams are sometimes referred to as Lady Bulldogs. The Bulldogs compete in NCAA Division I and are members of the Southeastern Conference ( ...

on October 28, 2000. Chandler was a semifinalist for the

Lou Groza Award The Lou Groza Award is presented annually to the top college football placekicker in the United States by the Palm Beach County Sports Commission. The award is named after former Ohio State Buckeyes and Cleveland Browns player Lou Groza. It has be ...

honoring the nation's top collegiate placekicker in 1999 and 2000; was a second-team All-American in 1999; a first-team All-SEC selection in 1999 and 2001; and was chosen by his teammates as the Gators' most valuable player for the 1999 season. He graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in telecommunications in December 2001.

Professional career

The San Francisco 49ers chose Chandler in the fourth round (102nd pick overall) of the

2002 NFL Draft The 2002 NFL draft was the 67th annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible football players. The draft is known officially as the "NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting" and has been conducted annually sinc ...

, and he played for the 49ers from to .National Football League, Historical Players
Jeff Chandler
Retrieved March 20, 2011. Chandler was released by the 49ers after the 2003 season, and he appeared on the regular season roster of two different teams in : the

and the

. He played in thirteen games during his four-year NFL career, kicking nineteen field goals on twenty-seven attempts (70.4 percent), with a career long of forty-nine yards.

References

Bibliography

* Carlson, Norm, ''University of Florida Football Vault: The History of the Florida Gators'', Whitman Publishing, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia (2007). . * Golenbock, Peter, ''Go Gators! An Oral History of Florida's Pursuit of Gridiron Glory'', Legends Publishing, LLC, St. Petersburg, Florida (2002). . * Hairston, Jack, ''Tales from the Gator Swamp: A Collection of the Greatest Gator Stories Ever Told'', Sports Publishing, LLC, Champaign, Illinois (2002). .

External links

Jeff Chandler
– Florida Gators player profile
Jeff Chandler
– National Football League player profile {{DEFAULTSORT:Chandler, Jeff 1979 births Living people American football placekickers Carolina Panthers players Cleveland Browns players Florida Gators football players Jacksonville Jaguars players Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida San Francisco 49ers players Mandarin High School alumni St. Louis Rams players Washington Redskins players