Saints Minicamp Updates Day 2 / 6-12-24

Artifactual said
Barring injury the kicker and punter positions are set without having position battles ahead. Grupe will be the kicker and Hedley will be the punter.

The Saints will benefit from the (IPPP) International Player Pathway Program as they will have a roster exemption for Smyth. They have options with him.

Coach Rizzi explained the importance of the kicker being able to place the ball into the Landing Zone in different areas that they may call upon him to do. With the noise about KC using a safety who has kicking experience instead of Butler, Rizzi debunked that idea for the Saints in his interview yesterday stating that the risk was not worth the reward. Kicking the ball out of bounds or short of the 20-yard line will result in the ball being placed at the 40-yard line. That would be a big time fail.

Keep in mind that the kickoff must travel a minimum distance of 45 yards (from the 35 to the 20) and the ideal distance would be 60 yards (to the 5-yard line) but no further. Also, the kicker is not allowed to cross midfield (the 50-yard line) on kickoff in coverage.

Rizzi said that the Saints coaching staff has watched every XFL kickoff on film available to them and have spoken to several coaches that have experience with it. They intend to use several different matchups and will use preseason to hone down on what works best and will also study what the other 31 teams do in preseason. He also said that a number of core offensive and defensive players that have not played on special teams in the past would now be involved in the kickoff coverage and kickoff return game, citing AK41 as an example as one of the returners in certain situations.

I don't think anything is set a kicker or punter. Grupe and Hedley were not good enough last year to give them the positions this year without competition. Hedley, in particular, was not very good and there are articles about how he needs to improve and what he is doing to improve. And the Saints brought in real competition. Smyth has a big leg and is a guy that could end up being a very good kicker and Hayball is another Aussie punter that was very good at Vandy and will compete with Hedley for the job.

I suspect Grupe wins the Kicker job but the concern is for kick coverage under the new kickoff rules. Grupe is like 5'7" and 157 Lbs. He isn't going to make any tackles on special teams at that size That's why the K.C. special teams coach recently talked about using a Safety with kicking experience for kickoffs. So, it's entirely possible that Rizzi will decide he needs a guy who can tackle to kickoff. I suspect that Hedley and Hayball who both played Aussie Rules Football can tackle. And Smyth, who played some form of Gaelic Football, can likely tackle too. So, if one of them is good enough at kicking off, they could get the job. But, Smyth will have to beat out Gupe for the FG kicking job which I doubt he does. So, maybe it will be one of the punters. As you said, Rizzi is still figuring this new kickoff out so anything that can give the team an advantage is on the table.