Michael Badgley is the Lions’ new kicker. The change back to Badgley, the team’s primary kicker in 2022, took place last Saturday in Detroit’s win over the Broncos.
Badgley replaced Riley Patterson, who has since been released. The move had been in the works for some time, however. Special teams coordinator Dave Fipp explained when their internal competition began and why the team switched back to Badgley in the season after Patterson had beaten him out over the summer.
“Internally, we had those guys competing in practice and so they would each get roughly six kicks a day and we’d kick them at least twice a week, so it was 12 kicks a week,” Fipp explained. “And over the course of six weeks, Badgley had been better, and we didn’t want to rush to make that decision right away. We felt like he deserved as fair of an opportunity as we could have given him, but it was clear at the end of the day that he was playing better.
Fipp continued,
“And so, ultimately, the way that I handle those decisions, I mean my job is to really have the best interest of the whole team in mind, or the whole locker room and all those players sitting in that meeting and it’s not just one person, but it’s really I have a responsibility to be fair to all them by playing whoever we think is the best player. And with a kicker it’s pretty clear. I mean makes and misses and percentages. And I do think that practice matters, and I do think that players trend towards what their practice stuff is.”
Fipp thought that the leg strength of the two are “very comparable”, but noted that Patterson missing two extra points in three games did play a factor.