There are always a few undrafted free agents who manage to earn spots on either the 53-man roster or practice. Which undrafted free agent is most likely to make his way to the New York Giants\u2019 53-man roster in 2026?<\/p>\n
When I put that question to Nick Baumgardner, draft analyst for The Athletic, during a recent \u2018Valentine\u2019s Views\u2019 podcast, I received an interesting answer.<\/p>\n
Dominic Zvada, the former Michigan placekicker.<\/p>\n
\u201cDominic Zvada from Michigan was one of the kickers who I thought had a chance to be drafted,\u201d Baumgardner said. \u201cBig 10 kicker of the year in 2024. Wasn\u2019t as good last year. missed a few more I think, but I think he only missed one field goal in 2024 and they used him a ton. So he is really good. He would be one that I wouldn\u2019t be surprised.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know exactly what their kicking situation is there, but he is a very good player. I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if he\u2019s someone who makes some noise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crowded is one way to describe the Giants\u2019 current placekicking situation. Seemingly talented might be another.<\/p>\n
The Giants have Ben Sauls, the left-footer out of Pittsburgh who steadied the Giants\u2019 turbulent placekicking situation by going 8 of 8 on field-goal attempts and 7 of 7 on extra points over the final three games of the 2025. Sauls\u2019 longest kick was a 48-yard extra point. Sauls, though, was 5 of 6 on field-goal attempts from beyond 50 yards in his final season at Pitt. So, he has the leg for the long kicks. Sauls will be just 25 this season.<\/p>\n
New York signed veteran kicker Jason Sanders during the offseason. Sanders was a First-Team All-Pro will the Miami Dolphins in 2020. In seven seasons with the Dolphins, Sanders made 84.2% of his field-goal attempts. He was 33 of 48 (68.8%) and 55 of 70 (78.6%) from 40-49 yards.<\/p>\n
The question about Sanders is health. The 30-year-old missed all of last season with a hip injury, and the Giants need to see if he is healthy and if the hip injury has had any impact on his effectiveness. The Giants gave Sanders a one-year contract with just $300,000 in guaranteed money, so they neither guaranteed him the job nor made a big financial commitment.<\/p>\n
There is obvious talent there, with Dane Brugler of The Athletic giving him a draftable grade in his 2026 NFL Draft Guide. There is also a four-year collegiate resume showing wild ups and downs.<\/p>\n
In 2022 at Arkansas State, Zvada made 17 of 18 field-goal attempts (94.4%).In 2023 at Arkansas State, Zvada made just 15 of 20 field-attempts (75%).In 2024 at Michigan, his best season, Zvada made 17 of 18 field-goal attempts (94.4%). He was also 7 of 7 from beyond 50 yards that season.In 2025, though, Zvada was just 15 of 22 (68.2%) on field-goal attempts.<\/p>\n
For his career, he went 64 of 78 (82.4%) on field-goal attempts, 135 of 137 on extra points (98.5%) and 10 of 12 83.3%) on field-goal tries from beyond 50 yards.<\/p>\n
In those two down seasons, Zvada was only 8 of 13 (61.5%) from between 30 and 39 yards. Why the volatile year-to-year swings?<\/p>\n
The Giants appear to be intrigued by the upside, and perhaps willing to see if they can smooth out the inconsistencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had some issues last year on the short kicks, but he has got a massive leg,\u201d Baumgardner said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m always with the kickers I\u2019m usually it\u2019s like if the guy\u2019s got a giant leg, I\u2019ll I think we can work with that. We\u2019ll figure out maybe how to make him more consistent from 40 on in, but I\u2019ll take the giant leg over anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Giants\u2019 placekicking situation was a mess the last three seasons as they continued to rely on a perennially-injured Graham Gano and then get caught short when the veteran kicker suffered what became an annual rash of injuries.<\/p>\n
That, obviously, is not going to happen in 2026. Will they actually bring three placekicker to training camp? Could Zvada actually end up with the job?<\/p>\n
It is certainly going to be interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are always a few undrafted free agents who manage to earn spots on either the 53-man roster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,23065,9093,11,10],"class_list":["post-217828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-giants-draft","tag-new-york-giants-roster","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}