A year ago, 30 teams feared Redskins owner Dan Snyder trying to buy a championship. What a difference a year makes.

	Miami's Olindo Mare converted 28 of 31 field-goal attempts in 2000.

But don't be surprised if Snyder shells out big money this year to find the kicker that the Redskins need.

In Miami, the Dolphins are feverishly trying to re-sign Olindo Mare because they fear the Redskins might go as high as $2 million a year to get him. The Packers used similar logic last week in locking up Ryan Longwell for $1.5 million a year. Bidding wars for kickers? Jimmy Johnson, who used to annually discard kickers because he didn't want to pay them, must be doing a slow sunburn off the Florida Keys just thinking about this.

It's not out of the question that there will be seven kickers who come from this free agent class who will make more than a million dollars. Mare tops the list and will surely eclipse Longwell's NFL record-setting contract from last week. The Rams are working on Jeff Wilkins before he hits the free agent market. The Chargers don't want to lose John Carney. Morten Andersen would like to finish his career in Atlanta. That leaves Joe Nedney of the Panthers and Steve Christie of the Bills in strong positions for good contracts.

At what price kickers? Ask the Redskins. They lost at least three games because of inconsistent field-goal kicking. In fact, had they talked Nedney into signing with them instead of the Panthers after the Panthers lost John Kasay, the Redskins may have made the playoffs and Norv Turner wouldn't have been fired with three games remaining.

The value of kickers has soared because the NFL was a defense-oriented league last year and it was easier to kick field goals than score touchdowns. Matt Stover of the Ravens kicked 35 field goals and his team won the Super Bowl. Nedney bounced from the Raiders to the Broncos to the Panthers and still ended up with 34 field goals.

Kickers earned their money last season, and now NFL teams are having to pay the price.

The punter market isn't as deep, but salary cap casualties could cause the list to grow. The Bills couldn't afford Chris Mohr's $750,000 salary, so he joins Dan Stryzinski of the Falcons, Brad Maynard of the Giants and Bryan Barker of the Jaguars on the smallest list of any free agency position.

After the main free agents are signed, teams concentrate on special teams. The Lions don't want to lose kick return specialist Desmond Howard, but they will have to get through the first month of free agency to determine how much they can afford to pay him.

Top special teams performers such as Michael Bates of the Panthers and Larry Izzo of the Dolphins are patiently waiting to see if their teams can re-sign them before they hit the market.

John Clayton is the senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.