After a number of years cycling through kicker after kicker, dealing with fluke injuries and soul-crushing misses, the Carolina Panthers might have finally found the guy worth keeping around. Undrafted out of Florida State University, Ryan Fitzgerald was one of the most consistent players on the Panthers roster throughout the 2025 season and deserves a moment in the spotlight as this week’s Rising Star.
Overall, Fitzgerald’s stats – of 25-30 (83.3%) – are not going to impress anyone. It’s not great,
in fact it is one of the bottom 10 percentages in the NFL this year. Continuing his career at that rate wouldn’t likely allow him to keep his job in the NFL over the long term. However, like everything else in this world, context is key, which is why I’ve gone back to look at each of Fitzgerald’s missed field goal attempts to see if there are any valid excuses.
Missed FG #1: 55 yard attempt at New England Patriots in Week 4. Fitzgerald just plain missed it short.
Missed FG #2: 32 yard attempt vs Buffalo Bills in Week 8. Mayday scenario. Andy Dalton takes an ill-advised sack with 12 seconds left in 2nd half and no timeouts. Special Teams rushed on the field and gets the attempt off as time runs out in the half.
Missed FG #3: 48 yard attempt vs New Orleans Saints. Blocked kick that eventually bounced around a before being recovered by the Panthers for a fresh set of downs.
Missed FG #4: 55 yard attempt at San Francisco 49ers in Week 12. Although not indicated in stat sheet, kick was clearly tipped by #26 on the 49ers who went unblocked from Fitzgerald’s right.
Missed FG #5: 54 yard attempt at Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 17. While the rain had briefly stopped, it had been raining for most of the game to that point.
Of Fitzgerald’s 5 misses, 2 were blocked/tipped, 1 was in a mayday scenario where they had a 10 second running clock to get from the sideline to snap, and another was 54 yards in the the elements. I did not go back to re-examine the 3 extra points missed on 34 attempts, but that will certainly have to be cleaned up. It’s the NFL so excuses only mean so much, but for a 1 year sample size and only 1 kick being a clear miss… it’s hard to get too upset.
Another note in Fitzgerald’s favor was his penchant for making the kicks that mattered most, earning his coaches’ trust late in games. His 4 game winning kicks is tied for the NFL rookie record, including a 49 yarder in windy Lambeau Field to take down the current #1 seed and a 33 yarder as time expired to earn him an NFC Special Teams Player of the Week award.
While matching the NFL rookie record for game sealing kicks is great, the most fascinating portion of Fitzgerald’s game went under the radar for long stretches of the NFL season. That is, despite being a rookie, Fitzgerald was one of the best best kickoff specialist in the league.
Fitzgerald’s kicks were returned for an average of 22.7 yards, the 5th best mark in the league. Similarly, opposing teams had an average starting field position at the 28.9 – also the 5th best mark in the NFL.
Fitzgerald was one of the few kickers in the NFL who implemented a ‘knuckleball’ technique during the league’s implementation of the dynamic kickoff rule. A midseason article by Austin Mock at The Athletic tracked kicker’s EPA during kickoffs and found that Fitzgerald’s 1.5 EPA/game was second highest in the league. A mark which was nearly double the 3rd place kicker’s 0.8 EPA/game. After 11 games, Fitzgerald had gained .5 wins above replacement on kickoffs alone, an extraordinarily rare feat.
It was not a perfect rookie season by any means, as Fitzgerald had his ups and downs. But, those ups were very high and those downs came with some pretty interesting caveats. Safe to say, the Panthers may have just found their long-term kicker.
