Chandler Catanzaro: Worth Bringing Back for the Jets?

One impending Jets free agent who hasn’t gotten much attention is Chandler Catanzaro. He signed a one-year deal with the Jets in last year’s free agency period, and with a solid 2017 has certainly put himself in a good place to lock up a starting kicking job for the next few years.

Let’s peek into some of the numbers behind his 2017 season and his career as a whole.

• Catanzaro connected on 83.3% of his field goals overall in 2017, 20th out of 35 qualified kickers and below the league average of 84.3%.
• Catanzaro’s career mark is almost dead-on with that 2017 average, at 84.4% over his four NFL seasons. Though, among 25 active qualifiers, that’s 8th best.
• After kicking 89% in his first two years, he’s down to 79% over his previous two.
• He was 29 for 29 on extra points, tied for the 3rd most extra points made without a miss. This was a marked improvement for him. He missed a whopping nine extra points over his previous two years in Arizona, hitting a ghastly low 91% of his freebies.
• Kicked for a touchback on 62.5% of kickoffs (You can get my take on the value of touchbacks here), 10th best in the league, captaining a kickoff unit that tied for 8th in kickoff DVOA.

Overall, you can conclude that Catanzaro is about as average as they come at the placekicking position. You might have already written him off by the time you read this sentence, but there is value to “average.” Scooping up an undrafted college kicker could give you an immortal GOAT like Justin Tucker, yes. However, relying on a young kicker could also sabotage your season and future, like the Buccaneers and Chargers have learned in recent seasons. You are absolutely not guaranteed to improve off of an average kicker by simply covering your eyes and pulling a name out of the hat.

Should the Jets make Catanzaro a top 5 paid kicker to retain him? Probably not. But should they think twice before rolling the dice on somebody else and moving on from his consistent reputation as a solid player? I think so.