The New York Giants’ 2026 training camp is in full swing with three weeks and three preseason games to play before they cut their roster down to 53 players on August 30.
One of the biggest position battles is at kicker, where incumbent Ben Sauls is trying to stave off rookie Dominic Zvada.
On Tuesday, after the Giants’ workout, first-year assistant head coach and special teams coordinator Chris Horton had a few updates and comments on the competition.
“You want to start at the kicker battle?” he asked. “It’s two young guys that are doing very well. Both guys’ leg talent is there. Both guys, where they are right now from where they were during this spring, I mean, it’s been tremendous growth just watching these guys go out and compete against each other. They know that they’re in a competition, and they come out every day and they work hard.”
Horton had to tweak both players this summer to get them to kick the ball straight. First, he spoke about what he did with Zvada.
“We talked about it a little bit,” Horton said. “We say, okay, we watched the tape. You watch him, you watch his form, you watch him at the combine, and you just ask him, what do you think led to those missed kicks? And it was a lot of things; he talked about it being a lot of things, and then we just tried to find a ball. We tried to find an operation that fit him, and we changed a couple things, and then he’s kicking the ball straight.”
Sauls had a similar issue. He began camp way behind, but has managed to gain back some ground.
“Just watching Ben at the start, it was kind of okay, just watching him, watching him, and all his balls tailed off to the right, right, because he’s a lefty,” Horton said. “So, they would all tail off to the right, and it was a combination of how you hold the ball, the movement on the ball, where (holder) Jordan (Stout) should seat the ball, the kind of lean and all those things, so the ball matches up to the foot a little bit better. And you’re right, since he left this spring, he left, he came back, and he’s just hitting balls, straight balls, straight balls, and that’s what we want to see, right? I mean, the guy kicked well last year. He was 8 for 8, so he kicked well.”
The competition could come down to the wire. Horton will have faith in whoever comes out the winner.
“Trust is a big thing, right? Trust comes with a lot of responsibility, and I think it’s easy,” Horton said. “It’s not because they’re young; you have to find a way to trust them. It’s what they do when they’re out there. You build trust through your work. You build trust through your preparation, and the preparation that both these guys are bringing every day — we’re trusting them, right? We’re trusting them, but we’re going to have to trust them in the big moments, and we try to put them in those situations so when they go out there, we feel pretty good about it.”
How each kicker performs during the preseason could be the determining factor when final roster decisions are made.
This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: New York Giants’ kicking competition could come down to the wire
Reporting by John Fennelly, Giants Wire / Giants Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By John Fennelly, Giants Wire | USA TODAY Network
