If you play fantasy football and your league draft is 12 rounds, when do you select your kicker? Round 11? Round 12? Chances are, you have already drafted a backup QB and TE before your starting kicker.
There is a kicker t-shirt for sale out there that states: “Kickers are people, too.”
The fact of the matter is that kickers score points. A lot of points. A team that has an accurate kicker has a weapon at its disposal. It is a sense of comfort when an offense will bog down around their opponent’s 40-yard line and instead of trotting out the punt team or going for it, the kicker goes out and nails a 57-yarder for three more points.
RELATED: 2024 NFL SCORING LEADERS
Remember, the contest is still the team with the most points wins the game. In 2024, the top 13 scoring leaders in the NFL were all kickers.
In 2023, the Cleveland Browns had one of the best kickers in the league with Dustin Hopkins. He then became injured trying to make a tackle and was out for the year, but was having a Pro Bowl season. He began the year going 3-3 against the Cincinnati Bengals. From Week 9 until his injury in Week 15, he did not miss a single kick, going 13-13.
Last year? Where do you start?
By Week 7, Hopkins had missed three field goals. In Weeks 9 and 10, he went 1-4. He was 0-2 against the Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints. At season’s end, he had four games in which he missed every field goal attempt. He made 18, good enough for 29th in the league. His 66.7% completion ratio ranked 37th. Hopkins was 4-8 in kicks of 50+, which is what he was known for as he was a perfect 8-8 the season before.
In July of 2024, he signed a three-year extension worth to which he will have a cap hit of $2.85 million this year with an option year in 2026.
Is Cleveland happy with Hopkins? Should the Browns bring in another kicker? Maybe draft one?
Yes, they have whiffed on Zane Gonzalez, Austin Seibert, and Cade York. But this past season, Seibert was ranked 11th, and Gonzalez went 5-7 in field goal attempts. The Browns employed Chase McLaughlin, then cut him once they drafted York. In 2024, McLaughlin was fourth in league scoring.
Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t the kickers.
Caden Davis was not the nation’s top kicker last year. He was a semifinalist for the Groza Award as the best kicker in college football but did not win. However, he had an exceptional college career. He was one of two kickers invited to the prestigious Senior Bowl. He is known as a kickoff specialist and was named the 2024 CFN FBS Kickoff Specialist of the Year.
Also for 2024, Davis was voted First Team All-SEC and First Team All-American. In his junior year, he was named Second Team All-SEC. He is known as a “clutch” kicker. Davis is not your prototypical kicker because he stands 6’-3” and is a beefy 200 pounds. But his size gives him a very strong leg. In his senior year, he made 96.6% of extra points and 82.8% of field goal attempts.
Photo by Derick E. Hingle/Getty Images
Now, nobody is suggesting using a fourth-round pick on a kicker like the Browns did with York back in the 2022 NFL draft. Cleveland traded away its fifth-round spot in the Kenny Pickett deal, but has four selections in Round 6 at slot numbers 179, 192, 200, and 216. They also have pick #254 in Round 7.
Davis holds two college records. In 2023, he broke an LSU Tiger Stadium record with a 57-yarder. Then this past season, he broke the Ole Miss record for most career 50-yard field goals in a single season with four.
Against SEC powerhouse Georgia in Week 10, Davis went 5-5 on field goals in the 28-10 win.
RELATED: PHIL DAWSON INTERVIEW
Dawgs By Nature’s Barry Shuck has interviewed numerous former Browns’ kickers such as Matt Bahr, Matt McCrane, Phil Dawson, Billy Cundiff, and Matt Stover, so he is well-versed in “kicker talk.” He caught Davis at the media day event at this year’s Senior Bowl. Standing next to Davis, his size appears more like a strong safety than a kicker.
K Caden Davis – Ole Miss
6’-3”, 200 pounds
40 time: 4.87
Projected round: 5-6
Q: Even though you are trying to get someone’s job, all of you kickers, punters, and long snappers never talk bad about each other. Why is that?
A: We are always training with each other, and we know each other. We know the life of a kicker and know what each one of us has to go through. There isn’t a need to talk bad about someone else. That someone else might end up being you one day. We get maybe two shots a game to make a difference and can’t be perfect all the time.
Q: What changes for you when your long snapper gets hurt and they have to bring somebody new in?
A: It can be a problem – it just depends. In college, it’s not in the NFL where you call a guy who isn’t playing to come in. For us, it is very lucky if you have a guy who did it in high school before. Otherwise, you have to train someone which can take some time. It is not a skill that a lot of guys have gone through and know what they are doing. There is a lot of adjustment, especially timing. It takes some time to get the rhythm done and get used to the timing.
‼️ For all the specialist sickos out there, @OleMissFB PK Caden Davis is best kickoff guy in this year’s draft ( !). KO hang-times in 4.10-4.20 range, which is insane. NFL ST coordinators who want automatic touchbacks will love… pic.twitter.com/2m9OdSwU00
— Jim Nagy (@JimNagy_Sooners) November 9, 2024
Q: With longer kicks of 50-plus, do you instruct the holder to tilt the ball back farther for more lift?
A: I really just keep everything the same. Sometimes you can lean the ball forward a little bit to drive the ball more. That depends on the wind. I would never lean it back more. I just keep it the same whether it is 22 yards or 52 yards.
Q: How does the long snapper hike the ball back to the holder where the laces are already facing forward?
A: That amazes me, too. They just get so good and know how many times the ball needs to rotate. They have just done it so much. They base that on the speed of the rotation.
Q: The NFL plays with the XFL kickoff. What is your opinion of that play?
A: Personally, it’s not my favorite. I am a bigger leg guy, which is an advantage for me. I would like it if they backed it up more to the 30. It looks weird to start off that way. .
Photo by David Jensen/Getty Images
Q: If the special teams coordinator gives you kickoff instructions to place the ball on the two, or the five, for example, what adjustments are needed?
A: Hang time doesn’t matter anymore. I would just shorten up my steps. I have already been working on that. I can do field goal steps with a five-yard approach. That gives me different locations to give me different distances. Depending on the conditions, obviously, I would just do field goal steps.
Q: In Cleveland and the entire AFC North, all of the stadiums are outdoors and are subject to the elements. What adjustments do you have to make to combat the wind?
A: I definitely would have to feel it out in each one of the stadiums. Some days and some stadiums, the wind does all types of swirls, and just out there playing the course. And you can play in one stadium 20 times, and each time the wind, the air, and the cold can be different.
Q: What is the one stat in your college career that you are the proudest?
A: They keep a stat in golf called “bounce back percentage.” They don’t really keep that for kickers, but I never miss two in a row. Any time I have missed, I have made the next kick.
Q: You have seen the NFL’s point after attempt which is different than college. What are the challenges of making essentially a 37-yard kick every time?
A: It doesn’t change much. You are hitting the ball the same way every time. It just means you have to be more consistent.
Q: With the XFL kickoff, it also changed the onside kick, which used to be a surprise. Now, you have to declare you are attempting this. Why do you think they basically killed this play?
A: The original play was never told to the receiving team. Now, it takes out some of the fun of being able to do some of the surprise tricks for an onside kick. It takes away from that. When everyone knows you are lining up for an onside kick, it becomes difficult to recover it. You have to rely on several good bounces and hope that a player on the receiving team muffs the recovery process.
Photo by Wes Hale/Getty Images
Q: You broke the Ole Miss career record in 50-yard field goals with four such successes this past season and led the team in points scored. Why aren’t kickers valued?
A: I think people believe they are just interchangeable. One kicker is struggling, and they think they can just bring in another and it will be so much different. Kickers are perfect, although everyone points to their stats and wants them to be. How many incompletions does a quarterback have? How many dropped passes with a receiver have? You never want your kicker to be in a slump, and if he doesn’t get out of it by the next game, another guy is waiting for the call.
Q: Is that why kickers aren’t drafted more?
A: Most people would say that if a kicker is scoring that many points it’s because the offense is doing really well. They will point to the offense is the one getting them in position, and the kicker just comes in and hits it through the uprights and do our job once they get down there.
Q: You are about to be in somebody’s training camp. What type of rapport do you expect to have with the veteran kicker who knows you are there to take his job?
A: I will be definitely coming in to learn from him and the other specialists that are there. But at the same time, it’s a business, and I’m trying to take the job for sure.
Q: What will NFL coaches and scouts say about you after leave this week?
A: I think they would say they were impressed with my character and how I carried myself in conversations and meetings. They will all be surprised by my size because there aren’t any kickers with height.