The 5 O’Clock Club: replacing Brandon McManus

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The Commanders suddenly find themselves without a kicker, and it’s an interesting season with the new rules for kickoffs possibly affecting how teams view the position. Former Washington kicker Joey Slye is one of two kickers on the roster in New England, but the starter is Patriots 2023 4th round pick Chad Ryland who has only made 64% of his field goals. field goal attempts during his rookie season. It seems unlikely that Slye will return for another edition in burgundy and gold.

With the new rules, leg strength on kickoffs won’t be as important as it once was. On the other hand, tackling skills can be, and some special teams coaches are apparently thinking about or experimenting with defensive backs or linebackers who have some kickoff experience to handle new kickoffs. sending. If the field kicker’s scope of activity is reduced solely to making plays (field goals and extra points), then accuracy, both long and short, will be paramount.

Of course, it’s rarely a good situation for a team to look to fill holes with veteran free agents in June. In a quick search, the top two names I found for veteran free agent kickers were 35-year-old Randy Bullock and 35-year-old Brett Maher.

However, in 2024 there could be an interesting alternative with the UFL season about to end. Starting June 16, UFL players can sign contracts with NFL teams.

At almost any other position on a professional football team, I would hesitate to think that I could find a talented player who could be recruited by the UFL to take on a starting role in the NFL, but I wonder if the placekicker might be the exception.

After all, kicking in one league is a lot like kicking in another, with the possible exception of crowd size. Let me briefly offer a few names of UFL kickers that might merit attention from the Washington front office and coaching staff.

Jake Bates – Michigan Panthers

The hottest kicker in the spring league, Bates has the longest field goal of season 24 with 64 yards, and he is the 2nd highest scorer among kickers. His 77% success rate doesn’t seem very inspiring (17 out of 22) until you look at the failures. He missed a 39-yard attempt early in the season, but his other misses were 51, 53, 58 and 62 yards.

In Week 5 against the Arlington Renegades, Bates made 5/5 field goals to help his team win the game 28-27. Among his field goals was a 60-yarder with 00:02 on the clock before halftime.

On kickoffs, which take place at the 20-yard line, he had a touchdown percentage of 6.3%. Most play-by-play entries I looked at had him dropping the ball around the 5 or 6 yard line.

Bates played his college ball at Texas State and Arkansas, and was an undrafted free agent with the Houston Texans last season, where he lost in a face-off with Ka’imi Fairbairn, which did not nothing to be ashamed of.

André Szmyt – St. Louis Battlehawks

While Bates may have grabbed the headlines, the leading scorer among UFL kickers this season is Szmyt, who missed just 2 of 21 attempts, with his longest field goal being 61 yards. He was 4-5 from 50-plus yards and 4-5 from 40-49 yards, so both of his misses came from a relatively long distance. Although less well known than Bates among NFL fans, Szmyt may be no less talented.

In addition to his accuracy, another possible advantage Szmyt might have is that his Battlehawks team played in front of home crowds that averaged 36,000 fans per game. He therefore played half of his games in front of noisy (although supportive) crowds while the Panthers games, for example, were played in front of crowds averaging close to 7,000 fans (Washington was 2nd in the league with a average attendance of 15,555).

Szmyt’s touchback percentage was 3.3% this season.

Like Bates, Szmyt was an undrafted free agent last year and he spent his rookie training camp with the Chicago Bears, losing to veteran Cairos Santos. As far as I can tell from checking three databases, Szmyt hasn’t appeared in any preseason games for the Bears, but in his 5 seasons at Syracuse he made 81% of his field goal attempts and 98% of his extra point attempts. .

Matthew McCrane – DC Defenders

If you’re looking for the “local” guy, McCrane is the 3rd highest scorer among UFL kickers. His field goal success rate is 80%, with a score of 16-20.

McCrane has a longer NFL history than Bates and Szmyt, having signed with the Cardinals as an undrafted free agent in 2018. In fact, he signed with a total of 4 different NFL teams during his tenure. rookie season, making 8 out of 12 attempts for a success rate of 67%. He missed both of his 50-yard attempts that season and went 3-5 from 40 to 49 yards. He did not play in regular season NFL play again, although he was on the training camp or practice squad rosters of the Browns, Cardinals, and Eagles in 2020–21.

Jonathan Garibay – Arlington Renegades

The most accurate kicker this season in the UFL was Garibay, who made 13 of 14 field goal attempts (93%), although his longest 3-pointer was 48 yards.

Garibay played for Texas Tech through 2021 and joined the Cowboys as an undrafted free agent in 2022, competing with Mason Crosby, who didn’t inspire much confidence at the time. You can learn a little more about Garibay in this ESPN article from the 2022 preseason:

In the one session he threw during an off-season workout open to the media, Garibay showed a strong leg. He made several kicks from 50 yards, but also missed a 55-yard shot and a 53-yard shot to the right post. McCarthy thinks the experience of long snapper Jake McQuaide and starter Bryan Anger will help.

“You can definitely get a sense of his capabilities,” McCarthy said. “…He got off to a good start. He’s just young.

Crosby had a better collegiate resume than Garibay, although Garibay had a 62-yarder to beat Iowa State and help Texas Tech become bowl eligible. It was the longest mark in FBS last season. Garibay only missed one attempt all year (15 of 16) and was a first-team All-Big 12 pick. In 2020, he made 8 out of 11 tries.

“Man, as a kicker, you always dream of moments like this, just to have the opportunity,” Garibay said. “I live by the saying that I’d rather be ready for an opportunity and not have it, than have one and not be ready to take it. I think at the end of the day, I was excited about the opportunity to shoot that field goal.

The Cowboys ultimately decided to go with Brett Maher, and you may remember how that ended up working out for the Cowboys (he missed 6 of 7 PATs in his last 3 games, and that’s part of the reason reason why Dallas was excluded from the playoffs). As far as I know, Gariday didn’t get the chance to play for another professional soccer team until he signed with the Renegades this season.