Earlier this month, the Indianapolis Colts stunned the league after firing kicker Matt Gay, after having signed Spencer Shrader from the Kansas City Chiefs.
Gay took a meandering path to Indianapolis, having initially signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the fifth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. He was waived at the end of that season, briefly signed with the Colts, and then moved on to the Los Angeles Chargers, where he helped take the team to a Super Bowl championship in 2021, and was named to the Pro Bowl. He then signed with the Colts for a second time, where he was given an astonishing four-year, $22.5 million contract in 2023 - the largest free-agent contract for a kicker in NFL history.
Despite having just given Gay a massive contract with two years still remaining on it, Ballard made the shocking decision to let him go. In his pre-draft press conference, he explained why.
"Look, Matt's a good kicker. He's still a good kicker. Matt's still gonna be a good kicker in this league," he said. "I think a lot of it had to do with Spencer. You know, having Spencer last year gave us a real insight to his talent level. Then he leaves us and performs, and performs at two different teams. You know how hard that is? That's difficult now, to go to two different teams and have to perform. That is not easy. That's, you're working with a totally different operation at both different - different snapper, different holder, and to go in and be successful? This had more to do with Spencer than it did really with Matt."
While Ballard insisted the decision wasn't due to Gay himself, there is no doubting that he underperformed in Indianapolis. Through his two seasons as a Colt, he had a 50% success rate on attempts of 50 yards or longer (11 of 22), and his completion percentage in 2024 - 83.8% - was the 24th best percentage in the NFL among kickers with at least 10 attempts.
Shrader, meanwhile, is a younger and less proven kicker, but the Colts have failed to find a franchise kicker since losing Adam Vinatieri. And while Ballard said he has faith in Shrader, he also admitted that he plans on signing another kicker to create competition at the position.
"We usually always bring in two kickers as it is. And we're always looking for a guy with upside, kind of like last year with Spencer," he said. "I give our special team coaches all the credit for that. They identified Spencer last year and said, look, he's got upside. We didn't necessarily have a vision that this is how it would work out, but you never know. So they do a great job finding guys with some upside. So we'll look for a guy with some leg strength and upside, and think we can work with and see how it plays out."