The Detroit Lions have a spot to fill in their kicker competition after veteran Michael Badgley suffered a season-ending torn hamstring in practice, leaving Jake Bates as the team's only kicker on the offseason roster.
And the process of replacing him has begun, as the team brought in four kickers for workouts on Friday, according to the league's transactions wire. The list includes Matt Ammendola, Lucas Havrisik, Matthew McCrane and Andre Szmyt.
Szmyt was someone we suggested the Lions should sign after he had an impressive season in the UFL with the St. Louis Battlehawks. The kicker made 19-of-21 field goal attempts (90.5%) and flashed a big leg with four makes in five tries from 50-plus, with a long of 61.
McCrane also played in the UFL earlier this year and drilled 16-of-20 (80%) field goals, including 5-of-7 from 50-plus. His longest make was from 58 yards.
The other two kickers both have NFL experience, although their numbers aren't good. Havrisik has a career success rate of just 75% in nine career games, and Ammendola is even worse, with a field goal percentage of 68.6%.
Of those four, the Lions are better off just bringing one or both of the UFL kickers to compete with Bates, as the stories of Ammendola and Havrisik are already written and neither figures to have any chance to be an actual positive.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell said earlier in the day that the team wasn't going to be in a rush to sign someone, but they will certainly do so at some point. Perhaps they'll take a look at more kickers in the coming days.
