What was supposed to be one of the more intriguing battles of Giants training camp may already be tilting hard in one direction.
Undrafted rookie free agent Dominic Zvada has put himself in position to take the placekicking job before camp even gets rolling, and the gap between him and the rest of the field looks wide.
The Giants opened spring work with Zvada, holdover Ben Sauls and veteran Jason Sanders all in the mix. Sanders didn’t last long.
After a few practices in the wind at Quest Diagnostics Training Center, the Giants moved on from him. Head coach John Harbaugh said Sanders might not be a fit for the conditions at MetLife Stadium, even though the New York Jets were quick to bring him in.
That left Sauls and Zvada to sort things out, and the spring results were not close.
Sauls, who arrived as an undrafted free agent rookie in 2025, had given the Giants a brief lift at the end of last season. He went 8 of 8 on field-goal attempts and 7 of 7 on extra points over the final three games, helping steady a kicking situation that had been troublesome for most of the previous three seasons.
Sauls described that run as “ pretty fantastic.” It also won him at least one believer in quarterback Jaxson Dart.
But this spring, Sauls never found that same rhythm. He was inconsistent throughout OTAs and minicamp, including one OTA where he hit just 6 of 12 tries from 33 to 47 yards. In mandatory minicamp, he made only 8 of 14 field-goal attempts.
Zvada, meanwhile, was spotless in that same minicamp, connecting on all 13 of his kicks.
Even with that kind of contrast, Harbaugh wasn’t ready to shut the door on the competition.
“I feel like this is preparation for training camp, which is where the competition will really heat up,” Harbaugh said. “The good thing about that is with Ben’s misses, they’ve all been left, if you’ve noticed.
They’ve all been pushed left. It’s the same exact miss every time.
“That’s a good problem to have. He knows the problem with it from a technique standpoint. He’s just got to lock in and fix it.”
There’s still time for Sauls to clean things up in camp. But right now, Zvada looks like the guy sitting in front.
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