The Colts are bringing in a familiar face for a second kicking leg this offseason. Can he impress yet again?
On Thursday, the Indianapolis Colts announced the re-signing of free agent placekicker Spencer Shrader, who spent all of 2024’s training camp and even played a game for the Horseshoe last regular season.
We have signed free agent K Spencer Shrader.
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) March 13, 2025
The former 2024 undrafted rookie from Notre Dame was 5 for 5 from field goal range during his debut pro campaign—including a long of 45 yards, and was a perfect 9 for 9 on extra point attempts.
As a a rookie, Shrader appeared in 4 total games with the Colts (1), New York Jets (1), and Kansas City Chiefs (2) this past season. His first season ended with the Chiefs placing him on injured reserve in early December of last year.
It’s normal for an NFL team to bring in an extra kicking leg for training camp and preseason. However, the Colts normally go for an undrafted rookie free agent kicker for their 2nd leg.
From that standpoint, this is at least somewhat unusual, but given their prior familiarity with Shrader, maybe it’s not at all. Perhaps they don’t like this class of rookie kickers either.
There shouldn’t be a kicking controversy in Indianapolis, as starting veteran Matt Gay was 31 for 37 last year (83.8%)—with a long of 56 yards, and a pristine 33 for 33 from XP-land.
Even if the Colts would cut him, they’d still have to eat $4M of dead money of his $6.75M 2025 cap hit, so there’s not much to gain there. It is some camp competition though.
It’s more surprising to me that Shrader wasn’t able to land in more of a wide open offseason kicking competition as at least a legitimate challenger to the current incumbent.
That doesn’t realistically appear to be in Indianapolis with the former Pro Bowler Gay, who remains one of the game’s highest paid kickers. Maybe an injury could happen though.
