Who Should I Start? Dustin Hopkins or Elliott Fry

Tuesday, August 26, 3:18 PM

The Cleveland Brown released kicker Dustin Hopkin on Tuesday, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN. It appears that Andre Szmyt will open the 2025 regular season as the team's placekicker, although the Browns could still bring in more competition before Week 1. Hopkins will be let go after spending the last two seasons kicking for Cleveland, where he went 51-for-63 on his field-goal attempts (81%) and 41-for-46 on his extra-point tries in 31 total games. The final straw for the 34-year-old veteran might have been when he missed one of his two extra-point tries in the preseason finale on Saturday against the Los Angeles Rams. Hopkins entered training camp on shaky ground at the position after going 18-for-27 on his field goals in 16 games a year ago.

Wednesday, August 23, 11:19 AM

The Denver Broncos waived kicker Elliot Fry (undisclosed) off Injured Reserve on Tuesday after reaching an injury settlement. It means Fry will now be able to sign with another team for the 2023 season. Brett Maher is still the leading candidate to be Denver's opening-day kicker in Week 1 against the division-rival Las Vegas Raiders. It's unclear exactly what the 28-year-old Fry is dealing with, and it remains to be seen if another team will give him a chance to compete for a kicking job this summer. He didn't kick at all in the NFL last year and spent the 2021 season with the Cincinnati Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs, going 4-for-5 on field-goal attempts in just two games.