The New York Jets recently signed former Ole Miss placekicker Caden Davis as an undrafted free agent. Let’s therefore look at Davis in more detail.

The 24-year old Davis is listed at 6’2” and 210 pounds. He was undrafted out of Ole Miss in April. Davis was at Texas A&M for four years before transferring to Ole Miss in 2023. He made 81 percent of his field goal attempts over the last two years.

Background

Davis was a three-star high school recruit and enrolled at Texas A&M in 2019, where he would redshirt his freshman season. Over the next three years, he played primarily just as a kickoff specialist, missing three of his four field goal attempts while making all seven of his extra points. He therefore opted to transfer to somewhere he could get a chance to be the main kicker. He got that opportunity at Ole Miss.

Davis made 18 of 23 field goals and all 45 of his extra point attempts in 2023 and then made 24 of 29 field goals in 2024, although he did miss two extra points.

Davis signed an undrafted free agent contract with the Jets, containing just $35K in guaranteed money. However, his roster chances improved when veteran Greg Zuerlein was released earlier this month.

Measurables/Athleticism

Davis has good size for a kicker, which helps him to generate power. He did not work out at his pro day, but he was on the track and field team in high school.

Leg Strength

Davis definitely has excellent leg strength, as he regularly makes field goals from beyond 65 yards in practice. He even made a 76-yarder once, albeit with the wind behind him.

He’s had a chance to showcase his big leg in games a few times, making a 57-yard game winner in high school and kicks of 56 and 57 yards with Ole Miss. Perhaps his most impressive kick, though, was against Georgia when his 53-yarder went over the goal post in rainy conditions.

His leg strength is also a key factor on kickoffs, where he has consistently posted a touchback rate of over 80 percent and gets impressive hang time, including a hang time of over five seconds on this kickoff.

He was named College Football Network’s Kickoff Specialist of the Year at the end of the 2024 season.

Accuracy

The accuracy standard you like to see college kickers meet is 80 percent, and Davis falls just below that, although he is above it over the past two years, which were the only seasons in which he was a full-time placekicker. He also posted a career best 83 percent in 2024 and his success rate on extra points is over 98 percent for his career.

Clutch

The main area of concern with Davis is his lack of experience. He’s only had two seasons of being a full time kicker since high school, despite being 24 already. Moreover, he hasn’t had much experience of making pressure kicks because Ole Miss didn’t have many close games.

Davis hasn’t actually made a game-winner since the aforementioned 57-yarder in high school, which actually came immediately after a game where his missed extra point lost his team the game.

Probably his most clutch kick was this 56-yarder against Tulane late in the fourth quarter. Had he missed this, Tulane would have had excellent field position down by seven. They ultimately won by 17 though.

Davis has had a couple of high profile misses in the clutch, though. One of them essentially represented his last chance with the Aggies, as he seemed to make a bad connection with the ball on this late game attempt to tie the game and prevent an upset loss.

He also badly hooked this late game-tying field goal attempt against Kentucky wide of the goalposts.

Tackling

With such a high touchback rate, Davis isn’t called upon to make many tackles, but he has the size to do so. He was credited with five in his career.

Intangibles/Miscellaneous

Davis hasn’t been involved in many fakes and showed why on this gadget play in the Gator Bowl as his terrible pass was intercepted and almost returned for a touchdown.

He has showed good determination and resilience as he waited for his opportunity and is a man of faith who works hard and tries to remain calm.

Davis has not punted at the college or high school level.

Conclusions

Davis was widely ranked as the fifth best kicker or thereabouts ahead of the draft but wasn’t really considered an elite prospect. He has an impressive leg but there is very little in his history to indicate how he might handle a pressurized situation at the NFL level.

He will therefore need to rely on his obvious talents and be as consistent as possible if the team is going to have more faith in him than his current competition, Anders Carlson.

Ironically it was issues with his kickoffs that saw Carlson lose his spot last year, and that’s the one area where Davis really does look like a legit NFL-level talent. Whether or not you can make field goals is a more important consideration, though, surely, and we don’t yet know enough about whether Davis can do that with sufficient consistency to warrant a spot.

Maybe it’s not impossible they retain both, but a more likely scenario could potentially see a veteran discarded by another team after preseason being given the job.