Scouts passed on Zvada over short-range misses, not his leg

Dominic Zvada has outkicked Ben Sauls through two-plus weeks of Giants training camp, as we wrote this week. He got there undrafted, after a final college season at Michigan in which he made 17 of 25 field goals. Two pre-draft reports traced that drop to short-range accuracy rather than to his leg strength.

247Sports reported that four of Zvada's eight misses in 2025 came from inside 40 yards, leaving him 9 for 13 on those attempts. Alex Kozora of Steelers Depot counted seven of the eight misses from inside 48 yards. Kozora graded Zvada a 7.1 in an April scouting report — “would sign as UDFA, would not draft” — writing that his ball tended to slice left from the right hash and citing the 2025 regression as the central concern. The same report described his leg strength as good enough to hit from 55-plus yards “without much strain” and called his stroke repeatable.

The season before, Zvada led the Big Ten in field goals made and field goal percentage. He made 21 of 22 attempts in 2024 — his only miss was blocked — a 95.5% rate that Michigan lists as a single-season program record, and made seven field goals from beyond 50 yards, also a school record. He was named Big Ten kicker of the year, a unanimous first-team all-conference selection, and an All-American: first team by the Sporting News, second team by the Associated Press. He had arrived in Ann Arbor after two seasons at Arkansas State, where he made 17 of 18 field goals as a freshman and set a Sun Belt freshman scoring record with 81 points.

Zvada considered entering the draft after that season, according to Kozora's report, but returned to Michigan partly to pursue the Lou Groza Award after being left off the list of finalists. His field goal percentage then fell from 95.5% to 68%, though he made all 43 of his extra points.

Kozora also noted that Michigan changed its field goal operation before the 2025 season, after long snapper William Wagner left for the NFL. He wrote that many of Zvada's misses were not the operation's fault.

The Giants signed him as an undrafted free agent in the spring. Special teams coordinator Chris Horton has said the staff reviewed Zvada's tape, changed the ball and reworked the operation around him.

Kozora's report also listed limited kickoff experience among Zvada's weaknesses. He handled 18 kickoffs in 2023 and appeared in a kickoff-specialist role in two games across his final two seasons at Michigan, but was never Michigan's primary kickoff man. Kozora wrote that Zvada “has the leg strength to seemingly be competent” there, while noting that hang time and placement are “something he may have to adjust to.”

Zvada could take his first professional kicks Saturday, when the Giants host the Vikings at MetLife Stadium.