Last year the Patriots spent a fourth-round draft pick on a kicker, Chad Ryland. The results were not good: Ryland made only 16 of his 25 field goal attempts and New England finished dead last in the NFL with a 64.0 percent field goal success rate.
This offseason, the Patriots signed veteran kicker Joey Slye, and Patriots.com reports that Ryland and Slye will have a true training camp competition with both of them having a real chance of winning the job and the one who performs better getting the nod.
In minicamp, Slye was the more accurate of the two, but that’s not saying much. Last year Slye kicked for the Commanders, making 19 of his 24 field goal attempts and ranking 29th of 32 NFL teams in field goal accuracy. Slye also has a career extra point rate of just 88.5 percent, which ranks dead last among kickers with at least 100 extra point attempts since Slye entered the NFL in 2019.
The bottom line is the Patriots have two kickers on the roster, neither of whom has proven himself worthy of being counted on. They’ll hope that one of them proves himself in training camp.