Every NFL kicker battle and who's winning the job in preseason

When Week 1 of this NFL season rolls around, the league will likely feature just 32 kickers on active rosters. Carrying two is rarely the right use of roster resources after cut day. But we aren't there yet, as a handful of teams continue to give multiple kickers preseason opportunities to battle for that coveted starting slot.

Coming out of the preseason's opening slate, you can find plenty of insights about the entrenched kickers in my weekly notebook. Now, however, is the time to focus solely on the battles that will eventually have a direct impact on our full 2026 positional rankings.

One is already resolved. Five rage on.

This article refers to kick value added (KVA), FanSided's in-house, proprietary metric designed to measure the actual value of kickers. KVA looks not just at a kicker's makes and misses, but at the distances from which they kicked and the overall league's level of success from each area during the season in question. You can read more about the methodology here.

NFL kicker battle tracker

Before we get to the individual developments from preseason Week 1, let's take a high-level peek at where each and every battle stands:

Five kicker battles persist, with various levels of separation. The New York Jets' pair of specialists are so neck-and-neck that it's hard to even pick a favorite. The Las Vegas Raiders, conversely, could cut their undrafted addition and surprise literally no one after the first week of the preseason.

But the Washington Commanders are notably not listed in the table above. We'll start there, since their battle came to a quick resolution.

Washington Commanders: Drew Stevens vs. Jake Moody

If Drew Stevens wasn't already the favorite going into the first live action of the preseason, he certainly gained the upper leg against the Miami Dolphins.

Considering how inconsistent Jake Moody has been throughout his NFL career, the Commanders should always have been leaning toward the upside offered by the younger player. Plus, it helps that Stevens strutted his stuff at Iowa in both favorable and adverse conditions, logging an average made field goal of 39.4 yards in 2025 to finish 17th in NCAA KVA. That came after a sixth-place finish in 2024, which gives him a two-year total better than everyone but Lucas Carneiro, Tate Sandell and Peyton Woodring — the clear-cut top three options in the 2027 class.

Stevens made the most of his opportunities against the Dolphins, pumping a 42-yarder just off-center right and making his lone PAT. Conversely, Moody needed the ball to carom off the right upright to convert his only field-goal attempt from 29 yards. Especially because he set up between the hashes, that's a miserable level of accuracy that, per my kick charting, would've ranked as his fourth-worst attempt in a 2025 season that saw him finish 35th in KVA.

The Commanders didn't wait long to express their confidence in Stevens. No longer in the Moody to roster two kickers, they cut ties with the veteran on Aug. 17:

NFL teams love their retread kickers, so Moody may get another opportunity at some point this season. But considering Daniel Carlson is still out there, as well as a whole slew of unproven young kickers with significantly more upside (see: Jonah Dalmas, Will Ferrin and Noe Ruelas, among others), they shouldn't go in this direction.

Battle status: Settled; Stevens is the guy

Indianapolis Colts: Blake Grupe vs. Spencer Shrader

Based on training-camp rumblings and attempt allocations, Blake Grupe seemed — emphasis on the past tense now, since question marks have re-entered the equation — to have the upper leg on Spencer Shrader.

Grupe had a miserable year with the New Orleans Saints (-12.03 KVA) before bouncing back in a brief stint with Indianapolis (5.93 KVA), but he's always profiled as an undersized, accuracy-first kicker with a high floor and a low ceiling. Shrader was incredibly accurate for the Colts before tearing his ACL and MCL last year (2.33 KVA), but he entered the offseason needing to prove he could fully regain his pre-injury form.

Consider that point proven. While Grupe left his 61-yard attempt short and to the right just before halftime, Shrader knocked his own 61-yard try inside the right upright with room to spare both horizontally and vertically. Even more impressively, Shrader's attempt came after a successful 46-yarder and tied the game with 1:16 remaining.

As a result, Shrader was the first official recipient of the "Kick of the Week" honor in my weekly notebook. Given the degree to which Grupe has outperformed him in training camp, making his practice attempts at a higher clip and from longer distances, that may not be enough to move the needle all the way in his direction. But that needle isn't stuck pointing at Grupe any longer.

Battle status: Shrader doesn't yet have the upper leg, but live action matters more than practice reps

Las Vegas Raiders: Matt Gay vs. Kansei Matsuzawa

Between Matt Gay's level of experience and familiarity with special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis, the Las Vegas Raiders' kicking job always felt like his to lose, even though his last few campaigns have left plenty to be desired. Kansei Matsuzawa is a great story with an even greater nickname (The Tokyo Toe), but regardless of the degree to which he thrived at Hawai'i last year — and he finished third in NCAA KVA — he needed to demonstrate NFL-level power after ending his collegiate days with nothing more than a 52-yarder to his name.

Gay didn't exactly have a stressful Week 1, knocking each of his extra-point efforts through the uprights against the Arizona Cardinals, and he watched from the sidelines as Matsuzawa completely imploded.

The undrafted free agent had one of the week's worst kicks, doinking it off the right upright from 38 yards out. And even more problematically, that came on the heels of leaving his first dynamic kickoff short of the landing zone and out of bounds, which gave Arizona the ball on the 40-yard line. Those are the types of mistakes you can't make at any point, but especially when you're the underdog in a camp battle.

Battle status: Gay should start printing out business cards that say "Raiders starting kicker"

New York Jets: Jason Sanders vs. Cade York

Regardless of the extent to which Jason Sanders has outperformed him in previous seasons, Cade York entered preseason action seemingly in control of the Jets' kicker competition. He's been slightly more accurate in camp and is five years younger than his rival, who likely needs to win this going away to assuage any fears over his checkered injury history.

Sure enough, York got the early attempts in the Week 1 exhibition contest against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He made both of them — a 38-yarder from the left hash and a 27-yarder from the right hash — before Sanders got his opportunity in the second half and striped a 47-yarder.

But York's 38-yarder wasn't exactly smooth; it actually led to confusion on social media about whether it was a successful conversion because it crossed the threshold above the uprights and required a moment of deliberation before the officials deemed it good.

This competition rages on.

Battle status: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

New York Giants: Ben Sauls vs. Dominic Zvada

Undrafted Michigan product Dominic Zvada has done everything possible to seize the New York Giants gig this offseason, massively outperforming Ben Sauls in camp. He's shown more accuracy, made longer kicks and allowed the New York fan base to start dreaming about regular-season makes from well over 60 yards.

Nonetheless, Sauls drew the first-half attempts against the Minnesota Vikings, making an extra-point attempt and putting a 46-yarder right down the middle as the second quarter expired. Zvada should theoretically have received opportunities in the second half, but New York claimed the third quarter's opening possession and never scored, preventing him from even logging a dynamic kickoff. Plus, the Giants passed up a game-tying 62-yard attempt in favor of a late punt, much to the chagrin of all of us who wanted to see Zvada put that leg cannon on display.

Battle status: Zvada's massive upside and sterling camp performance should still have him in the lead

New Orleans Saints: Tanner Brown vs. Charlie Smyth

Given his 60-yard heroics in the UFL, Tanner Brown should be the man to beat for the Saints' kicking gig even if Charlie Smyth is the incumbent. It's not a knock on Smyth, who has shown that he belongs on the NFL radar, to acknowledge that Brown has the significantly stronger leg — and therefore the upside teams crave at the position these days.

The two have engaged in an incredibly tight competition throughout the offseason, with neither taking a significant lead at any stage. The Week 1 matchup with the Jacksonville Jaguars provided the first bit of actual differentiation.

Smyth was successful on both of his extra-point tries, but he left his 52-yard attempt out to the right, and it wasn't particular close. Conversely, Brown sent 29- and 49-yarders soaring through the uprights, albeit slightly right of center on both. On the 49-yarder, he employed a smooth stroke that didn't show even the tiniest hints of mechanical breakdown from a further distance.

This competition is far from over, but one miss can have an outsized impact when it's still in the neck-and-neck stage.

Battle status: Tanner Brown should be the clear favorite but has by no means secured the job

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