Jets Sign A New Kicker, Again

The New York Jets have cut kicker Kaare Vedvik and signed kicker Sam Ficken to replace him. Ficken becomes the fourth Jets kicker in a month.

Sam who you ask? Excellent question, glad you asked.

Sam Ficken. Rhymes with kickin’.

Sam Ficken is a 26 year old, 6’ 1”, 192 pound kicker out of Penn State University. He has kicked around the NFL a lot without ever finding a permanent home. Ficken was in the Jacksonville Jaguars camp in 2016 but did not make the team. He was in the Kansas City Chiefs camp in 2017 but did not make the team. Ficken then moved on to the Los Angeles Rams at the end of the 2017 season, where he played in two games. There he made two out of three field goals, with a long of 23(!) yards, missing from 36 yards. He also missed an extra point. Ficken played another two games for the Rams in 2018, where he made 10 out of 10 extra points, but made just one out of three field goal attempts. Ficken made a 34 yard field goal and missed from 28 and 45 yards (yikes!).

Ficken moved on to the Green Bay Packers in 2019, where he again failed to make the team. Overall in his brief NFL career Sam Ficken is 14 of 15 on extra point attempts and three of six on field goal attempts. He has never made a field goal in the NFL longer than 34 yards and never attempted an NFL field goal beyond 45 yards.

Suffice it to say Sam Ficken may not be the long term answer at kicker. He is, however, the answer for now. Whether or not he’s the right answer is still very much in question.