Sunday’s game between the New York Giants and Washington Commanders was a tale of two kickers. The Commanders had an exceptional day as far as their kicker was concerned — Austin Seibert’s seven field goals were enough to give them a 21-18 victory.
The Giants had a completely different situation. New York chose to not dress backup kicker Jude McAtamney, despite starter Graham Gano landing on the injury report with a groin injury.
This immediately backfired when Gano injured his hamstring on the opening kickoff while attempting to tackle Austin Ekeler on the return, leaving the Giants without a kicker the rest of the day. They did have punter Jamie Gillan attempt an extra point, but after he missed, they decided to keep the offense on the field on fourth down despite being in field-goal range. They also went for two-point conversions instead of kicking extra points after touchdowns.
Not dressing a kicker cost them the game — a hard lesson learned by the Giants.
The kicker situation remains an issue for the Giants to solve, as Gano is expected to miss “a few weeks,” head coach Brian Daboll said on Monday. The Giants have since worked out four kickers: Tanner Brown, Randy Bullock, Zane Gonzalez and Riley Patterson.
That said, the team has an option in-house with practice squad kicker McAtamney, who is an undrafted rookie free agent signing from Rutgers. He has not kicked in a regular-season NFL game.
The Giants face the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, followed by a short week, taking on the Dallas Cowboys in a divisional “Thursday Night Football” matchup just a few days later. With two games in a short period of time, Gano will likely not be available if he needs more time to get healthy.
Before going down with an injury, Gano was 2 for 2 on field goals with a long of 50 yards. He also was 8 for 8 in extra points. In 194 career games, he is 326 of 389 in field goals (83.8%) and 384 of 403 in extra points (95.3%).
