Eight players attempted kicks for the Giants in the past four seasons. Now they're starting over.

Ben Sauls made both of his kicks in Saturday's 13-10 preseason loss to Minnesota, a 46-yard field goal as the first half expired and one extra point. Dominic Zvada, the undrafted rookie from Michigan competing with him, did not attempt one.

The job is open because the Giants released Graham Gano on March 30 after six seasons, then signed Jason Sanders in free agency and released him June 2 without bringing in another veteran. John Harbaugh's first roster at the position comes down to a second-year kicker who has played three NFL games and a rookie who has played none. They have to be at 53 players by Aug. 30.

In the Brian Daboll era, the Giants had kicking problems in 22 of the 63 games he coached. The Giants missed or had a kick blocked in 20 of them, by a count of the league's play-by-play data; in two more the problem was who was kicking: once the punter finished the game after an in-game injury, and once both rostered kickers were on injured reserve. In five, the points lost to kicking problems were enough to change the result or the late-game situation: one tie and four losses. Four of those five came down to an extra point or a field goal of 35 yards or shorter.

2022 was the exception

Gano was the only kicker the Giants used in 2022. He played all 17 games and both playoff games, made 29 of 32 field goals and was 8-for-9 from 50 yards or longer. It was the only season of the four in which the Giants needed one kicker.

Dallas blocked a 47-yard attempt on the Giants' opening offensive possession in September. Against Detroit in November, neither of the two extra points the Giants tried went through — the first was blocked by John Cominsky, the second hit the right upright — in what became a 31-18 loss.

On Dec. 4 against Washington, Gano's 58-yard attempt with about five seconds left in overtime came up short. The game ended 20-20.

2023: Injuries and replacements

Gano had been on the injury report in October 2023 with a left knee that eventually required surgery. He kicked eight games on it and made 11 of 17 — 64.7 percent, the worst season of his Giants career.

On the Giants' opening series of the season, Dallas blocked a 45-yard attempt and Noah Igbinoghene returned it 58 yards for a touchdown. That game ended 40-0.

Two of his six misses came on Oct. 29 against the Jets. Gano was wide left from 47 in the first half, then wide left again from 35 with 28 seconds to go and the Giants ahead 10-7, both attempts on fourth-and-1. The Jets moved 58 yards on two plays, Greg Zuerlein tied it as time expired and won it in overtime from 33. A made 35-yarder would have put the Giants up six, and Zuerlein's kick would not have tied it.

"[P]ut this one fully on my shoulders. It was just a terrible game by me and I gotta do a better job," Gano told reporters in the locker room afterward, per Big Blue View. Asked whether the knee was the cause, he said it was not. The Giants placed him on injured reserve five days later, with surgery scheduled for the following week.

Randy Bullock was signed in early November to replace Gano and kicked six games before hurting a hamstring on a kickoff in New Orleans, moments after making a 56-yarder — punter Jamie Gillan finished that game and made a 40-yard field goal. Cade York was signed, waived, re-signed and then hurt his quad in practice before he could ever kick for the Giants. Just before Christmas the Giants signed Mason Crosby, who was 39 and had not kicked for anyone that season. He was the fourth Giant to attempt a field goal that year.

Crosby's second game was New Year's Eve against the Rams. A 45-yard attempt was blocked on the last play of the first half, but Ben Skowronek was flagged for leaping and the play was wiped out; Crosby made the 31-yarder he got instead. He then missed an extra point wide right in the third quarter, and his 54-yard attempt with 35 seconds left came up short. The Giants lost 26-25, one point after a missed extra point and a missed 54-yarder.

2024: The Giants run out of kickers

The Giants opened the season with Gano and no kicker behind him on the game-day roster. In Week 2 at Washington, Gano hurt his right hamstring on the opening kickoff, chasing Austin Ekeler down a 98-yard return that was called back on a penalty. He had been added to the injury report the day before with a groin. Jude McAtamney, a Rutgers product the Giants had signed through the NFL's international pathway program, was on the practice squad and was not elevated.

That left Gillan again. The punter missed the only extra point the Giants attempted, and they did not try another kick the rest of the day — no field goals, two failed two-point conversions, two fourth-down attempts. They scored three touchdowns and no points after them and lost 21-18. Washington's Austin Seibert made seven field goals, a franchise record, the last from 30 yards as time expired.

"He missed the first one and we thought our chances were better going for it or going for two as the game went on," Daboll said postgame.

Greg Joseph was signed off Detroit's practice squad that week. He made 13 of 16. He missed from 48 with three minutes left at Cleveland, with the Giants ahead 21-15, and missed from 47 and 45 in the fourth quarter of a 17-7 loss to Cincinnati. Joseph went on injured reserve himself in early November. With both rostered kickers on injured reserve, the Giants elevated McAtamney from the practice squad, and he made his NFL debut against Washington on Nov. 3.

Gano came off injured reserve a game later, for the Munich game against Carolina, and missed from 43 in a 20-17 overtime loss, although he did make a 42-yarder to force the extra period. A month later, against New Orleans, his game-tying 35-yard attempt was blocked by Bryan Bresee. "It was still elevating when he blocked it. He got his thumb on it," Gano said afterward, per giants.com. The Giants lost 14-11.

2025: Four kickers and a one-point loss in Denver

In 2025, Gano hurt his groin in warmups before the Week 3 game against Kansas City and did not attempt a kick until the fourth quarter. Gillan, filling in again, had his extra point blocked in the second quarter. Gano's only attempt was a 25-yarder in the fourth, which he made. He went on injured reserve six days later.

Two days after that game the Giants signed Younghoe Koo to the practice squad. Atlanta had released him four days earlier. He had made a Pro Bowl in 2020 and had made 181 of 211 field goals in his career, 85.8 percent. He did not kick. The Giants gave the job to McAtamney, elevated him for Week 4 and signed him to the active roster on Oct. 9. Daboll did not publicly explain why McAtamney ultimately won the job. Special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial did, more than once: Koo was still learning the operation with a new snapper and holder. "When you come into a new building, learning the new operation may take some time," he said in October.

McAtamney made all three of the field goals he attempted as a Giant. Extra points were the problem — 10 of 13. All three misses came in a two-week stretch, and two of them came on Oct. 19 in Denver, in a game the Giants led 19-0.

He missed after Cam Skattebo's second-quarter touchdown, then missed again after Jaxson Dart's go-ahead touchdown with 37 seconds left. The Giants were ahead 32-30 rather than 33-30, and Wil Lutz's 39-yarder as time expired won the game rather than tying it. Giants lost 33-32.

"I missed vital points at vital times today. I'm not going to shy away from that," McAtamney said postgame, per the team transcript. "The snap and hold was good. It was just my lack of execution on the kick. I'm not going to shy away from my mistakes and letting the team down." He was waived two days later.

Gano came back and missed a 45-yarder against San Francisco on Nov. 2. The following week he was found to have a herniated disc in his neck pressing on the spinal cord. He went on injured reserve for the second time that season and did not kick again.

"It's unbelievably frustrating. I mean, obviously all I want to do is play football," Gano said of the neck injury, per the team transcript.

That left Koo. Gano was ruled out for the Chicago game, and Ghobrial said that week the Giants would "explore every option" and "take it to the very end of the week." Koo was elevated and went 2-for-2 on field goals and 2-for-2 on extra points in a 24-20 loss on Nov. 9, Daboll's last game. Daboll was fired the next day with the team 2-8, and the Giants promoted Koo to the active roster on Nov. 15, five days into Mike Kafka's interim tenure.

Koo did not last either. At New England on Dec. 1, Koo pulled up on a field goal attempt and kicked the ground after the ball moved on the hold. "The ball and the cold weather, and the ball kind of slipped out at the bottom, so it was moving and I just didn't, you know, I wasn't able to kick through the ball," he said afterward, per the official postgame transcript. "The ball was moving when I was driving to it, so I just pulled up on it." Two weeks later he missed from 52 and 51 against Washington. The Giants waived him on Dec. 16, and Sauls made his NFL debut five days after that.

The five games, with the missed points added back

In all five games, restoring the points lost to the kicking problem changes the result or the Giants' late-game position, with the caveat that a different score changes how the rest of a game gets played. Both extra points in Denver and the Giants win 34-33. The 35-yarder against the Jets puts them up six with 28 seconds left, and Zuerlein's field goal does not tie it. The extra point against the Rams ties the final score. Three made extra points at Washington leave the game tied after Seibert's final field goal. And Gano's 58-yarder against Washington in 2022 would have won the game — although that is the one kick of the five nobody should have expected him to make.

Four of the five were one-score games, and in four of them the Giants left points on the field on extra points or field goals of 35 yards or shorter, kicks the league made 95.6 and 97.6 percent of the time over those four seasons. Season accuracy does not show it. Gano was at 90.6 percent in 2022, 81.8 in 2024 and 90.0 in 2025, and finished his six Giants seasons making 87.4 percent of his field goals and 96.2 percent of his extra points across 73 games, per Pro Football Reference.

No other team has had this much kicker churn

We could find no published league benchmark for kicker churn, so we built one, counting every player credited with a field goal or extra point attempt for each team from 2022 through 2025 — punters included — using nflverse play-by-play data.

Eight different players attempted a kick for the Giants over those four seasons. That is tied with Washington for the most in the NFL. San Francisco, the Jets and Tennessee used seven apiece. The league median is three, and two teams — Las Vegas and Seattle — got through all four years with one kicker.

Using four or more players to attempt kicks in a single season is rare: it happened 21 times in 861 team-seasons since 1999, fewer than one team a year. The Giants did it in 2023, 2024 and 2025. No other team since 1999 has done it in two consecutive seasons.

Someone other than a kicker attempted a field goal or extra point seven times league-wide between 2022 and 2025. Three of the seven were Jamie Gillan, in three straight seasons. The only other team since 1999 to have a non-kicker attempt kicks in three consecutive years is Atlanta from 2005 to 2007, and Atlanta used punter Michael Koenen that way by design. San Francisco's Mitch Wishnowsky has three, but not consecutively. Gillan's were all emergencies with no backup kicker dressed: twice after the kicker was hurt during the game, and once after Gano was hurt in warmups.

The Giants also ranked 29th of 32 in extra point percentage over the four years, at 92.7 against a league figure of 95.6. On field goals overall they were 25th, at 82.9 percent.

Injuries weren't the whole problem

Injuries explain most of the churn. These three things were not injuries.

The first was dressing one kicker at Washington in 2024. Gano was on the injury report with a groin injury, McAtamney was on the practice squad and available, and the Giants went in with no contingency. Daboll said postgame the decision was his. "We thought he'd be good to go. We talked to him, we talked to the trainers," he said, per the team transcript. "All the decisions that are made are mine." Asked whether he would dress a second kicker in hindsight: "Knowing that he was going to get hurt on the first kickoff, yes certainly."

Gano rejected the criticism directed at Daboll over the decision. "I think that's pretty ridiculous," he told reporters three days later, per Big Blue View, and said the groin and the hamstring were unrelated.

The second was leaving Gano on the field through October 2023. He was on the injury report with the knee before the Giants shut him down on Nov. 3, with surgery scheduled for the following week. He made 64.7 percent in the meantime, and two of the misses came in the Jets loss.

The third was activating Gano off injured reserve on Oct. 25, 2025, five weeks after the groin injury, and going to Philadelphia with him as the only kicker. McAtamney and Koo were both on the practice squad, and both were eligible to be elevated. Teams get two standard elevations a game. The Giants spent theirs on receiver Lil'Jordan Humphrey and safety Raheem Layne, which left them at Philadelphia with one kicker. Daboll had not committed either way three days earlier. Asked whether he was leaning toward not keeping Koo if Gano was activated, he said, "I'd say today is Wednesday. Let's see how it looks on Friday after practice."

Now Harbaugh has to pick one

Sauls is a left-footed kicker out of Pitt who spent his rookie year on two practice squads before the Giants promoted him in December. He went 8-for-8 on field goals and 7-for-7 on extra points in three games. Zvada made 21 of 22 at Michigan in 2024, including seven from 50 or longer, then made 17 of 25 in 2025 and went undrafted.

giants.com's coverage of the offseason program noted that Zvada "took advantage while Sauls has dealt with some misses in practice." The team's unofficial depth chart now lists the two level. Zvada made a 62-yarder in a simulated end-of-game period at practice on Aug. 12, reported that day by John Schmeelk of giants.com and Patricia Traina of Sports Illustrated, both of whom were at the practice.

Chris Horton, Harbaugh's assistant head coach and special teams coordinator, said on Aug. 11 that Sauls' misses were tied to the operation, specifically where new holder Jordan Stout seats the ball. Zvada has not attempted a kick in an NFL game.

The Giants play at Miami on Aug. 22 and against the Jets at MetLife on Aug. 28, where they are the road team.