The Miami Dolphins are embracing change throughout the roster, and that doesn't exclude special teams. For the first time since 2018, kicker Jason Sanders won't be on the Miami roster in any capacity. The same can be said for the team's punter for the last three seasons, Jake Bailey. Even the team's long snapper was swapped out, with Joe Cardona moving on after just one season.
Of course, Sanders missed all of last year after suffering a mysterious hip injury in the offseason. His replacement, five-year journeyman Riley Patterson, was superb in his place. He performed so well, in fact, that some wondered late in the year whether Sanders was healthy enough to return and was simply being kept on injured reserve to avoid disrupting what was working.
Despite knocking 93.1 percent of his field goal attempts through the uprights — a feat that placed fourth in the league — Miami didn't rush to re-sign him at season's end. For a time, it appeared the Dolphins would be going another direction when they inked a different journeyman, Zane Gonzalez, to a one-year deal with $100,000 guaranteed on March 12. Later that same day, however, they would bring back Patterson and make one thing abundantly clear: there would be a kicking competition in Miami. Scintillating.
Riley Patterson seems to have won the Miami Dolphins' kicking job after Zane Gonzalez was placed on injured reserve
In all seriousness, scattered kicker reports from training camp indicated Gonzalez might actually be outperforming Patterson, with the latter missing a 43-yarder last week. More recently, though, Dolphins reporter Travis Wingfield noted that both had made all of their 'competitive' kicks in the special teams period. With the competition neck-and-neck, it was a crushing blow when, ahead of Monday's practice, head coach Jeff Hafley said Gonzalez would be week-to-week with an injury.
The competition was essentially decided when, later that evening, the team announced that Gonzalez would be headed to injured reserve. The procedural move all but ensures that Gonzalez will be released with an injury settlement and look for his next opportunity in another city. Should injury or ineffectiveness plague the Dolphins later on, it is not out of the question that he could be brought back once he is healthy.
For now, though, it's Patterson's job to lose. The Dolphins opted to fill Gonzalez's roster spot not with another kicker, but with defensive back Nick McCloud.
Nonetheless, Patterson shouldn't be dismissed as a winner by default. His kicking chops are legitimate. In addition to his 93.1 success rate last season, he only missed one extra point all season, going 34-of-35. He went 14-of-15 on field goals over 40 yards, a telling development that dispels the frequent talking point that he can't hit the long ones.
While it's unfortunate for any competition to come down to something outside the player's control, no one ever said the NFL was all peaches and cream. Riley Patterson has been through the wringer, kicking for six different teams in his career. His best season was his last one with the Dolphins, and Miami is banking on him to do it all over again.
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