Who Should I Start? Graham Gano or Rodrigo Blankenship

Saturday, February 22, 12:20 PM

The New York Giants don't have any big contracts that they need to shed this offseason and are in a pretty healthy salary cap situation in 2025, but The Athletic's Dan Duggan suggests that kicker Graham Gano could still be a cap casualty as the Giants look to save a little extra money. The 37-year-old veteran is set to count $5.7 million against this year's cap and has missed 16 games because of injury the last two years. If the G-Men decide to cut the kicker, they'd save $3.2 million on the cap while creating $2.5 million in dead money. Gano injured his hamstring in Week 9 in 2024 and ended up playing in only 10 games, going 9-for-11 on his field-goal tries and 15-for-15 on extra points. He's been pretty reliable in his five seasons with New York, making 87.2% of his field goals, but the Giants wouldn't be blamed for looking to go younger at the position.

Monday, August 21, 6:14 PM

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers waived kicker Rodrigo Blankenship on Monday. Blankenship lost the kicking battle to Chase McLaughlin in training camp this summer and will now look to latch on with another team before the start of the 2023 regular season. The 26-year-old spent last year with the Indianapolis Colts and Arizona Cardinals, going 4-for-5 on his field-goal tries and 4-for-5 on extra points in just three total games. As long as Tampa doesn't bring in more competition for McLaughlin to close out the preseason, he should enter Week 1 as the team's starting kicker. McLaughlin, 27, made 83.3 percent of his 36 field-goal attempts and made all 21 of his extra-point tries in 16 games with the Indianapolis Colts in 2022. The kicking position in Tampa won't be as exciting in fantasy now that Tom Brady isn't running the offense in 2023.