Legit Kicker Competition Facing Colts

INDIANAPOLIS – For a team incorporating 7 new starters this upcoming season, you can point to several areas for competitive position battles.

The most competitive?

It might just be at placekicker.

Special teams coordinator Brian Mason knows the rare situation where he has two kickers who went a combined 24-of-25 on field goals and 24-of-24 on extra points last season.

“Certainly, with two proven guys probably at this level is certainly unique,” the fourth-year special team coordinator says. “I coached in college for 14 years, there was a number of years where we’d have two good kickers that are competing. Obviously, in college you have a different roster makeup with more guys and certainly more specialists on the roster. Last year, we had a kicking competition between two kickers who were a little bit maybe more unproven.

“It’s exciting. Certainly, we have two guys that we think are deserving and talented enough to be starting kickers in the NFL that are both great teammates and do all the right things and work really hard. So certainly, it’s going to be exciting to see how those two guys compete. I think it’ll bring the best out of both of them and I think one of them will certainly win the competition, be starting for the Colts, and one of them will be fortunate enough to start for somebody else. But I think they’re both going to be starting kickers this year in the NFL.”

Spencer Shrader beat out undrafted free agent Maddux Truijllo last year in another training camp kicking competition.

Shrader, a 2024 undrafted free agent of the Colts, went on to make 13-of-14 field goals and all 14 extra points before a serious leg injury ended his season in mid-October.

After the Colts turned to Michael Badgley for a few weeks, his struggles led to them exploring for another kicking option.

That’s where Blake Grupe entered.

Grupe was the Saints kicker for the past 3 years, but an 18-of-26 start to 2026 led to New Orleans parting ways with him.

Standing 5-7, Grupe’s confidence never wavered in joining the Colts, with a perfect 5-game stint, including some massive kicks in a near road win at Seattle.

With Shrader expected to be back and fully healthy for training camp, the Colts will look to get this kicking competition going around 3 days a week.

“How do you evaluate a kicking competition,’ Mason asks rhetorically. “Step one, that everybody can understand is, who makes the most kicks. Certainly, those kicks are going to be weighed slightly differently. The kicks that we do on our own and we chart are going to be slighted at the bottom. Kicks we do in front of the team or in a unit setting are a little bit further ahead of that, versus kicks that we can do in a scrimmage or a joint practice and then a preseason game are going to be weighed a little bit heavier. We would like for those guys to get the same number of opportunities. Sometimes you can’t perfectly script that in a scrimmage or a joint practice or a preseason game, but you want to try to put those guys in as many of the similar situations as you can to chart okay, who’s the most consistent, who appears to mentally and from a routine standpoint and a poise standpoint, have the most confidence, be kicking at the highest level?

“And then not all makes and misses are created equal. So, if everything is extremely consistent or they’re both kicking at a high level, who’s got the highest percentage of makes that are truly down the middle versus who has more misses or misses that are ugly misses, and some of those things. And then the last piece if everything is perfectly consistent through all of those is going to be, who has the upside with the most talented leg…usually when you’re talking leg talent, you’re talking about the height at the line of scrimmage. So, how much height and trajectory do they get on the kick? And then, who has an ability to make more from 50-plus and 60-plus?”

It should be noted Shrader missed 2-of-5 kicks during a mini-camp practice period, while Grupe was a perfect 5-of-5.

As this competition plays out, another storyline will be the “loser” of it could very well net the Colts something in return via a late August trade.

The return wouldn’t be anything substantial, but it’s worth noting.

Since Adam Vinatieri hung it up following the 2019 season, the Colts have explored quite a bit at the kicker position.

Does this competition, no matter who wins it, indicate they finally will have some stability there?