This spring, it looked like the placekicking competition might be one of the most interesting things to watch during New York Giants training camp.
That may no longer be the case.
Undrafted rookie free agent Dominic Zvada may have already won the job.
The Giants began spring practices with Zvada, holdover Ben Sauls, and veteran Jason Sanders
competing for the job.After watching Sanders struggle in the wind at Quest Diagnostics Training Center for a few practices, the Giants cut him. Head coach John
Harbaugh declared that Sanders might not be a fit for the conditions at MetLife Stadium, an interesting stance since the New York Jets quickly picked up Sanders.
Sauls, an undrafted free agent rookie in 2025, went 8 of 8 on field-goal tries and 7 of 7 on extra points over the Giants’ final three games last season, temporarily settling a kicking situation that had been problematic for most of the last three seasons.
Sauls called that three-game stretch “pretty fantastic.” He certainly made a fan of quarterback Jaxson Dart:
This spring, Sauls was not the same. He was, in fact, pretty miserable.
Sauls was erratic all spring. In one OTA, he went just 6 of 12 from 33 to 47 yards. During mandatory minicamp, Sauls made just 8 of 14 field-goal attempts.
During that same minicamp, Zvada made all 13 of his attempts.
Despite the obvious difference in performance, Harbaugh was not ready to say the competition was over.
“I feel like this is preparation for training camp, which is where the competition will really heat up,” Harbaugh said. “The good thing about that is with Ben’s misses, they’ve all been left, if you’ve noticed. They’ve all been pushed left. It’s the same exact miss every time.
“That’s a good problem to have. He knows the problem with it from a technique standpoint. He’s just got to lock in and fix it.”
Even if he does fix it and has an excellent training camp, Zvada appears to enter camp so far ahead that it may not matter.
If Sauls struggles early in training camp, would the Giants move on from him and add a veteran kicker to push Zvada for the job?
