It only took the Jets a week to blow up their own kicking competition. They'd waived Cade York last Tuesday and handed the job to Jason Sanders, a move that looked settled until Sanders went out in the preseason finale against the Giants and missed his only extra point while pushing a 54-yard field goal try short. That's the kind of night that gets a kicker a very short leash in the NFL, and Sanders' leash ran out fast.
After claiming Blake Grupe, the Jets have released kicker Jason Sanders.
Tom Pelissero broke the news Monday afternoon: the Jets claimed Blake Grupe off waivers, and Sanders was out the door as a corresponding move. Rich Cimini added the extra layer of pain for the roster — guard/center Kohl Levao also got waived in the same transaction wave. Grupe isn't some unknown; he's bounced around this offseason, getting cut by the Saints in late November after a rough 18-of-26 stretch, then rebuilding his stock with the Colts by finishing a perfect 21-for-21 over his final five games there before Indianapolis waived him in favor of Spencer Shrader ahead of the season. That kind of hot streak is exactly the resume a team panicking at kicker wants to see.
And now the other shoe has dropped, so to speak: PK Jason Sanders has been released by the #Jets, per transaction wire. So the new kicker is Blake Grupe. They also waived G/C Kohl Levao.
But the Jets weren't ready to fully cut ties with Sanders, either. Just a couple hours after the release news broke, word came that New York was bringing him right back — to the practice squad, not the 53-man roster, but back in the building all the same. ProFootballTalk had the transaction, and Pelissero confirmed it as well.
Jets sign K Jason Sanders to their practice squad. t.co/NJKFhv8gGO
That's a classic hedge. Grupe gets first crack at the job now, but if he struggles the way Sanders did — or the way he did in New Orleans before his turnaround in Indy — the Jets have a return-ready kicker sitting one practice-squad elevation away instead of scrambling the wire again in Week 1. It's not a vote of confidence in either guy so much as a team that got burned once this preseason and doesn't want to get burned twice.
For a Jets team trying to avoid another season decided by special-teams chaos, this whole saga — cut York, crown Sanders, watch Sanders shank kicks against the Giants, dump him for a guy two other teams already gave up on, then keep Sanders on standby anyway — says less about any one kicker and more about how thin the position has been for this franchise all camp. Whoever holds the job in Week 1 is doing it on a very short audition.