The Browns have spent more than a decade searching for stability at kicker, and Andre Szmyt is giving them a reason to believe they may have found it.
Cleveland once had that spot locked down for 14 years with Phil Dawson, who delivered points with remarkable consistency and left in 2013 as the second-leading scorer in franchise history with 1,271 points. Since then, the Browns have cycled through kickers without finding much lasting security, with recent disappointments including Cade York and Dustin Hopkins, who both lost their grip after strong starts.
Szmyt has quickly pushed himself into a different category.
His Browns debut last season began on a rough note when he missed a potential game-winning field goal in Week 1 against the Cincinnati Bengals. The early criticism was only part of what he was dealing with, as he was also coping with the loss of his mother, Lala, to a brain aneurysm on July 10, 2025.
He answered with a strong rebound. Szmyt finished 24 of 27 on field goals, good for 88.9 percent, and made 25 of 26 extra points. He was perfect from inside 30 yards, going 4-for-4, connected from 55 yards and did not miss a kick from Week 8 on.
"I mean, I owe this franchise my life," Szmyt told the Akron Beacon Journal. "I owe them everything and I hope I'm here for life.
It really does mean a lot that they stuck with me. I mean, after Week 1, they know everything that's going on in my personal life, too.
And they know, one, it's a challenge to play in the NFL in and of itself, especially this position with the mental battle, but then also with everything else that's going on in your personal life. I mean, they knew I could handle it."
Now in his second year, Szmyt has carried that momentum into training camp. He has made 15 of 17 field goal attempts so far, and this week he turned in a perfect practice that ended with a made kick in a two-minute drill.
#Browns K Andre Szmyt went 6/6 in his field goal drills and then added another made FG during a 2-minute drill to end practice. pic.twitter.com/WDrZAedptq
- Camryn Justice (@camijustice) August 4, 2026
The Browns’ quarterback situation has drawn plenty of attention, and for good reason. But that only increases the pressure on the rest of the roster to cash in scoring chances, and a dependable kicker matters a lot when every point can swing a game.
Special teams have been a mess for most of the Bubba Ventrone era, and Cleveland has learned the hard way what happens when it gives kickers too long a leash.
It is still a volatile job, and there is always a mental side to it. So it would be too soon to declare the issue fully solved.
Even so, the early signs are hard to ignore. Szmyt has given the Browns something they have not had at the position in a long time: real confidence.
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