Zvada has outkicked Sauls in Giants camp. Harbaugh says the job isn't decided.
Zvada has been the more accurate kicker in camp and has the bigger leg, but Chris Horton says the Giants have two kickers trending up.
Dominic Zvada is leading the Giants' kicker competition heading into Saturday's preseason opener. The undrafted rookie has been more accurate than Ben Sauls in camp and has the bigger leg — though special teams coordinator Chris Horton says both have kicked well enough that the job isn't settled.
Zvada has made 48 of 51 field goals through Aug. 12 to Sauls' 41 of 48, per ESPN's Jordan Raanan. He went 7 for 7 in Wednesday's practice with makes from 50, 53 and 62 yards, per Big Blue View, while Sauls made 5 of 6, good from 50 and 53 and missing from 45.
That's a reversal from the spring. Sauls opened the offseason as the favorite, the only one of the two who has kicked in an NFL game, while Zvada was coming off a rough final season at Michigan. Instead Sauls struggled early and Zvada has looked like the All-American he was in 2024.
Horton, speaking to reporters Aug. 11, had a mechanical explanation for both. Sauls is left-footed, and his misses were drifting for a reason that had as much to do with the hold as the kick. Punter Jordan Stout holds for both kickers and had to switch sides between them.
“All his balls tailed off to the right, right, because he's a lefty. 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 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.”
Horton credited Stout for the adjustment, calling him “outstanding holding for a lefty and holding for a righty.” Sauls, he said, came back from the spring “just hitting balls, straight balls, straight balls.”
With Zvada, the staff went back through the misses that sank his draft stock. “And then we just tried to find a ball,” Horton said. “We tried to find an operation that fit him, and we changed a couple things, and then he's kicking the ball straight.”
“He does have a big leg,” coach John Harbaugh said of Zvada on Aug. 12, “but the bottom line is you got to kick it straight consistently.”
The Giants had planned a three-way competition, but released veteran Jason Sanders on June 2, and Art Stapleton has said on his podcast that another veteran probably isn't coming. That leaves a position the Giants churned through last season in the hands of two players with almost no track record: Sauls' NFL work is three games last December, and Zvada, as a rookie, has never attempted a kick in a regular-season game.
Horton said trust isn't a function of age. “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,” he said. “You build trust through your work. You build trust through your preparation.”
The Giants host the Vikings on Saturday at MetLife Stadium, which is expected to be the first game action either kicker gets all summer. Harbaugh hasn't said how the kicking duties will be split.