Charlie Smyth and Tanner Brown were competing to be the New Orleans Saints starting kicker. It's been less than encouraging from both players, and the proof is in the actions. The Saints just signed Daniel Carlson the week of the final preseason game, and it already feels like he's the leader in the room.
Smyth has been in constant battles since joining the Saints, and this will likely be his last. He went toe to toe with Blake Grupe in back to back training camps in a losing effort. Smyth appears to be on his way to once again losing another kicker battle, but this time he's losing to himself.
Smyth has done nothing to stake his claim to be the starter, and the only thing working in his favor was the fact that Tanner Brown wasn't effective either. Brown punctuated the Saints' shutout loss against the Rams with a missed 39-yard field goal as time expired.
Kellen Moore is learning from of his biggest mistakes from Saints' 2025 season
Kicker has been a problem for a couple of seasons now. During Kellen Moore's debut season as head coach, it was a particularly loud problem, and Moore displayed too much leniency when handling it.
Grupe won the battle, but he was lackluster once the season started. He consistently missed kicks from deep and distances that felt routine. Fans pled with Moore to make a change, but it took weeks before he pulled the trigger.
Sure, Grupe somehow picked it up when he joined the Indianapolis Colts and started playing "meaningful football." In New Orleans, though, it just wasn't working. He missed 8 kicks in 11 games, missed a kick in each of his first 3 games, had multiple games with two misses, and it still took 3 months for Moore to make a shift.
Would that have been a difference between a win or loss? Who knows, but it was much more about the process than the results. Moore gave Grupe too long of a leash. Signing Carlson shows they aren't making that mistake again.
Carlson has two All-Pro seasons under his belt, but at the same time, this has more to do with the players who were already in the room. That history makes him an interesting alternative, but this is about Moore being proactive at kicker.
Kicker is typically a position that isn't thought about until you need it. Smyth and Brown has shown they aren't reliable, and rather than sit around and wait for them to find that reliability, Moore is searching for someone who can provide it. That's a step forward from how he handled this exact situation one year ago.
Add us as a preferred source on Google