New York Jets have finally signed a new Ficken kicker

The New York Jets have signed kicker Sam Ficken after the team held tryouts on Tuesday. Here is everything you need to know about the Jets new specialist.

The New York Jets have been frantically searching for a kicker ever since veteran Chandler Catanzaro shockingly retired this summer.

But even before his retirement, the issue started way back in March when the team decided to let Pro Bowler Jason Myers walk after a career year. Myers instead signed a four-year, $15.45 million contract with the Seattle Seahawks while the Jets were left floundering.

Catanzaro struggled in camp before he eventually retired. A familiar face in Taylor Bertolet was brought back only for him to prove that he wasn’t the answer after a disastrous summer. And the team’s most recent experiment with Kaare Vedvik didn’t exactly prove fruitful.

Vedvik missed his only extra-point attempt and shanked a 45-yard field goal in Sunday’s 17-16 loss to the Buffalo Bills. If Vedvik makes those kicks, it’s easy to imagine a scenario in which the Jets win that game.

Now, it appears as though Vedvik’s tenure in New York is finished after just one week.

The Jets held kicking tryouts in practice on Tuesday and multiple NFL veterans such as Greg Joseph and Younghoe Koo took part. But it was former Los Angeles Rams kicker Sam Ficken who impressed the team the most — enough to earn him a contract on the spot.

In a subsequent move, the New York Jets announced that Kaare Vedvik had been released.

Ficken was originally signed as a free agent by the Jacksonville Jaguars after going undrafted in the 2015 NFL Draft. In his four years at Penn State, Ficken connected on just 72% of his field goals finishing his career 54-of-75.

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However, he did manage a career-high 83% rate as a senior.

After bouncing around a few team’s preseason rosters, Ficken was finally given his chance with the Rams following an injury to Greg Zuerlein. He would make just two regular-season appearances going 2-for-3 and connect on both his field-goal attempts in the postseason.

Zuerlein would once again go down the following season in 2018 prompting the Rams to call on Ficken once more. This time, however, would not prove to be as successful.

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Ficken would make just one of his three field-goal attempts including a miss from 28-yards out in a Thursday night game against the Minnesota Vikings. The Rams would release Ficken just a few days later.

If there is a positive takeaway from this signing, Ficken has missed just one of his 15 extra-point tries in his brief NFL career and that’s something that the likes of Bertolet and Vedvik have struggled with.

Ultimately, we will have no idea how Ficken how will fare until he finally steps on to the field this Monday night.

Could he be the answer at the kicker position that the Jets have been searching for? Or will he be another one-week wonder in the team’s everlasting search for a new placekicker?

Only one way to find out. But for now, the Jets appear to have finally found a new Ficken kicker.