New York Jets: Matt Bryant wants to end team’s kicking woes

The New York Jets are dealing with some serious kicking woes. Veteran free-agent kicker Matt Bryant would like to help the green and white.

Things couldn’t be going much worse for the New York Jets kicking competition in 2019. The team literally went from the first Pro Bowl kicker in team history to a reject this offseason.

Last year the Jets found some guy named Jason Meyers off the scrap heap and he had a career year.

After being an average kicker with the Jacksonville Jaguars for three years he was claimed off of waivers by the Jets in late August.

In 2018 Meyers went 33-of-36 for a 91.7 conversion rate.

That Pro Bowl season was amazing for the Jets but ultimately proved too costly for the team. During the offseason, Jason signed a four-year $16 million contract with the Seattle Seahawks.

So the green and white decided to go bargain shopping and went back to an old castoff in Chandler Catanzaro.

They should’ve left him where they found him.

There’s no other way to slice this, Chandler has been awful during training camp. The only consistent thing Catanzaro has done is consistently miss field goals. There’s a reason Chandler has been on four different teams over the last four years.

The Jets can’t mess around, a good kicker can separate the so-so teams from the great teams.

So who should the Jets call? Former Atlanta Falcons kicker Matt Bryant.

When the Falcons declined his team option back in February he announced on social media that he wouldn’t be retiring:

“Over this past year, I’ve been asked numerous times about retirement and how I feel. Well, I’m not retiring and I feel fine and plan on feeling even better with some changes to my offseason program!”

Bryant has been in the league since 2002 and has played for five different NFL franchises over the last 18 years.

Despite his age (44), he is still playing at an insane level:

• 2018: 20 of 21 (95.2 conversion rate)
• 2017: 34 of 39 (87.2 conversion rate)
• 2016: 34 of 37 (91.9 conversion rate)

A typical issue with kickers as they get older is they lose their power, that’s not an issue with Matt Bryant either.

Over the last two years, Bryant has hit 12-of-14 field goals from 50 yards or more.

He earned the nickname ‘Money Matt’ and the Jets could desperately use that level of consistency on special teams.

We reached out to Matt Bryant on social media to see if he’d be interested in signing with the green and white and he replied via private message:

“J-E-T-S… JETS, JETS, JETS!”

We got receipts. @Matt_Bryant3 just gave us the @nyjets chant, now we just got to make it official. #JetsCamp #TakeFlight #Jets pic.twitter.com/J3fnKhJNjW

— The Jet Press (@TheJetPress) August 6, 2019

The only thing left to do is for Bryant to sign on the dotted line and join the squad officially. This is a match made in football heaven.