Cade York’s second chance at reviving his NFL career has arrived.
Nearly four months after being released by the Browns following a disastrous preseason, York, a 2022 fourth-round pick, is set to kick for the Giants in their Week 16 matchup Monday against the Eagles. York had been on their practice squad for the last two months and is next in line to kick for New York after it placed Randy Bullock (hamstring) on injured reserve.
York’s career had a quick uprising and abrupt drop-off in his time with Cleveland. After entering his rookie season with high expectations because of his high draft status, York went 4-for-4 on field goals and drilled a 58-yard game-winning field goal in Week 1 of 2022 to lift the Browns over the Panthers.
That moment unfortunately became the high-point of his Browns tenure, however, as he went just 19-for-27 (70 percent) on field goals the rest of the season. He badly missed multiple kicks at Cleveland Browns Stadium toward the end of the year, and his slump continued into the 2023 preseason, when he converted just 4 of 8 field goals and missed two game-winning attempts.
York was signed to the Titans practice squad a few days after he was released by the Browns. He joined the Giants’ active roster in early November and was waived on Nov. 22 before re-signing to their practice squad two days later.
The Giants have been hit hard by injuries at kicker this season — Bullock joins another longtime kicking veteran, Graham Gano, on injured reserve.
York was the next man up.
"He's getting better," Giants special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey said about York. "He's working at it. Young specialists are always a work in progress, so those guys are always trying to find a routine, trying to tweak certain things and just work on those small details of what he's doing. Being around Randy and Graham has been huge for him… He's been taking advantage of it. And I told him, this is a godsend for you to be able to be around two veteran kickers that have had double-digit years that have both started over 150 games, played in 150 games, in the same building as you at the same time. That's big for him."
The Browns certainly haven’t regretted their decision to cut York. They traded for 10th-year veteran Dustin Hopkins from the Chargers shortly before waiving him, and Hopkins has been the league’s best kicker this season, drilling a league-best 33 field goals on a league-high 36 attempts. He’s kicked four game-winners for Cleveland this season, too.
The Giants’ special teams group is now composed of two former Browns specialists — Jamie Gillan, who kicked for the Browns from 2019-21, is also their punter.
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