Who will the Carolina Panthers start at kicker? A training camp competition awaits
Rarely do specialists get their turn in the spotlight during training camp.
But this year, at least in Charlotte, two kickers will have their chance to shine.
The final entry of The Charlotte Observer’s positional series is on the Carolina Panthers’ potential specialists — and specifically who will prevail in the kicking competition between longtime NFL journeyman Matthew Wright and rookie undrafted free agent Ryan Fitzgerald.
Panthers kicking competition: Matthew Wright vs. Ryan Fitzgerald
Two of the Carolina Panthers’ three specialists from a year ago are gone.
One is Johnny Hekker, a generational punter the Panthers let walk in free agency and who found a home in Tennessee. The other is Eddy Piñeiro, who one week last year was the most accurate kicker in the history of the NFL — and a few weeks later was out of a job.
The Panthers found a replacement for Hekker. That’s Sam Martin. He agreed to a one-year, $1.6 million deal in March after the 35-year-old logged a decent year with the Buffalo Bills to the tune of 46.7 yards per punt and 25 punts within the 20.
As for a replacement for Piñeiro? The Panthers are still narrowing that down.
Here’s the lowdown on the two kickers:
▪ Matthew Wright is a 5-11, 174-pound, 29-year-old kicker out of Central Florida. He’s been on six different teams in five years and played 29 NFL games. He has an 87.3 field goal percentage and is 41 of 43 on extra points. He played in one contest in Carolina during the 2023 season, while Piñeiro was hurt, and went 0 for 1 on a 50-plus yard field goal attempt.
▪ Ryan Fitzgerald, meanwhile, is an undrafted free agent rookie coming off a stalwart career at Florida State. Some of the 6-foot-1, 190-pound kicker’s 2024 accolades: first-team All-American, second-team All-ACC and a Lou Groza Award finalist. He went 13 for 13 on field goal tries his senior year, the most in the nation without a miss; he became the second kicker in Florida State history to make his first 13 field goals, too. He also went 5 for 5 from over 50 yards — the most 50-yard field goal conversions in a season at FSU — and 14 for 14 on extra points. His one blemish? A 12-for-20 year in 2022 — something he explained in an Athletic story that was caused by a change in his kicking swing. He reverted to his old form thereafter — and hasn’t looked back.
The kicking competition has already started, for what it’s worth. Wright and Fitzgerald took turns kicking in open workouts this past summer. Both were accurate.
Fitzgerald, in his one day kicking during minicamp, went 5 for 5 on the skinny practice posts (about half the width of normal goalposts) and hit from as deep as about 58 yards. Wright, in his turn, went 3 for 5, hitting from the deep 40s and missing wide right from 50-plus.
Projected Carolina Panthers specialists
Kicker: Ryan Fitzgerald
Long snapper: JJ Jansen. (He’s the longest tenured player in Panthers history and signed a one-year deal worth up to $1.4 million with the team in March, according to Over The Cap.)
Punter: Sam Martin.
Competition to watch: Kickers Ryan Fitzgerald vs. Matthew Wright.
