Saints Unexpected Roster Battle Quietly Emerging

The New Orleans Saints have had a solid offseason to this point and have started to see al of their hard work of the offseason actually on the practice field.

New Orleans hired Kellen Moore to be the team's head coach and since then there has been a lot of configuration with the roster. Now, the team has been able to take the field for OTAs and mandatory minicamp and start to see what they actually have.

The big roster battle of camp surely is at quarterback, but there may be another one developing right in front of our eyes.

New Orleans seemed pretty set at kicker heading into the offseason. Blake Grupe had a solid 2024 season in his second year in the NFL. He went 27-of-31 on fields (87.1 percent) and 31-of-33 on extra points (93.9 percent). You can't really ask for much more out of a kicker.

But, the Saints have another interesting guy on their hands as well. New Orleans signed Charlie Smyth, formerly of the Gaelic Athletic Association, last year but he was waived and then re-signed to the practice squad.

Both kickers have been impressive in camp so far and a few Saints insiders noted that Smyth blasted a kick that could've been good from over 70 yards on Wednesday.

"A day after Blake Grupe hit a 61 yarder, Charlie Smyth CRUSHED the same kick," The Times-Picayune and The Advocate's Matthew Paras said. "That was really impressive. Bobby Hebert thought it’d be good from 70, and I don’t disagree."

"Watching Charlie Smyth today reminded me that the only reason I'm even considering the Saints kicker spot as a position battle is that he's got a potentially generational kicking leg," Jeff Nowak of Audacy Sports said. "Still going to be *very* tough to beat out a guy who almost never misses and has 60-plus range.

"Charlie Smyth went 5-6 (miss from 49) and made 61 look like it was an extra point. Justin Reid practiced as the emergency guy (1-2) then Davon Godchaux did … something."

"Charlie Smyth hit a field goal today from 61 that would have been good from 71," Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.Football said.

This will be something interesting to follow over the next few weeks.

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