K Spencer Shrader tore multiple ligaments, out for year

[AlwaysSunnyinIndy]

Not a surprising outcome based on looking at the video of the injury.

Wishing Shrader a speedy recovery.


https://x.com/JoelAErickson/status/1975244625792172524

Colts K Spencer Shrader tore multiple ligaments, a source confirms after Pat McAfee Show’s report from earlier.

Awful break for a guy who won AFC Special Teams Player of the Month in his first month as a starting NFL kicker

https://x.com/mchappell51/status/1975243288035938814

Can confirm Colts K Spencer Shrader suffered season-ending knee injury vs. Raiders. Yes, that sucks.

[Thorgrim]

F’n raiders.

[albany ed]

That's a fuckin' shame. He may never recover from this and that's gonna cost him millions.

[Hoopsdoc]

Yeah, that’s awful. I feel terrible for him.

I like him because he kicks with confidence.

Is he even under contract for next season?

[AlwaysSunnyinIndy]

Originally Posted by Hoopsdoc

Is he even under contract for next season?

Yes, the Colts signed Shrader to a 2 year contract.

However, there is no guaranteed money allotted for next year.

[Colts And Orioles]

Originally Posted by albany ed

That's a fuckin' shame ...... he may never recover from this, and that would cost him millions.

Originally Posted by Hoopsdoc

Yeah, that’s awful. I feel terrible for him.

I like him, because he kicks with confidence.

Is he even under contract for next season ???

Originally Posted by AlwaysSunnyinIndy

Yes, the Colts signed Shrader to a 2-year contract.

However, there is no guaranteed money allotted for next year.

o


Considering the surrounding heartbreaking circumstances, I suspect that Carlie Irsay-Gordon will financially compensate Shrader one way or the other ...... remember, Jim Irsay was entitled to recoup $10 Million from Andrew Luck when Luck retired abruptly just before the start of the 2019 season, and he chose not to ....... as I recently said in another thread, I believe that the 2nd and 3rd generations of the Irsay family (Jim and Carlie) see the forest for the trees in terms of being long-sighted, and creating and preserving their legacies.

o

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

F’n raiders.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...ly-done-season

These dirty SOB’s just can’t help themselves. A good penalty for the franchise would be draft compensation to teams they inflict injury to by dirty play.

[Colts And Orioles]

Originally Posted by AlwaysSunnyinIndy

This is not a surprising outcome, based on looking at the video of the injury.

I'm wishing Shrader a speedy recovery.



https://x.com/JoelAErickson/status/1975244625792172524


Colts K Spencer Shrader tore multiple ligaments, a source confirms after Pat McAfee Show’s report from earlier.

Awful break for a guy who won AFC Special Teams Player of the Month in his first month as a starting NFL kicker.


https://x.com/mchappell51/status/1975243288035938814


I can confirm that Colts K Spencer Shrader suffered season-ending knee injury vs. the Raiders. Yes, that sucks.

o


(6 MONTHS LATER)


Kicker Spencer Shrader recently booted a 54-yard field goal, and continues to make strides.



SOURCE: ) James Boyd l (The Athletic)

o

[Colts And Orioles]

Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles

o


(6 MONTHS LATER)


Kicker Spencer Shrader recently booted a 54-yard field goal, and continues to make strides.



SOURCE: ) James Boyd l (The Athletic)

o

o


The Colts on Spencer Shrader/Blake Grupe Kicker Battle .... ‘It’ll Be a Difficult One'

(By Joel A. Erickson)

https://www.indystar.com/story/sport...s/89974805007/




INDIANAPOLIS — The hottest battle of Colts training camp likely won’t come at one of the positions left open by the departure of a long-term starter.

It will be waged by two players who started for Indianapolis at the same spot last season.

The Colts were able to bring back Blake Grupe in free agency, setting up a winner-take-all battle with a recovering Spencer Shrader for a kicking job that has essentially been up for grabs since age finally caught up with Adam Vinatieri.

The Colts have been through plenty of kicking competitions since Vinatieri retired.

What makes this one different is that Indianapolis believes it has two of the best 32 kickers in the NFL on the roster.

“It's going to be exciting to see how those two guys compete. I think it'll bring the best out of both of them,” Indianapolis special teams coordinator Brian Mason said. “One of them will certainly win the competition, be starting for the Colts, and one of them will be fortunate enough to start for somebody else, but I think they're both going to be starting kickers this year in the NFL.”

A late hit by Raiders safety Tristin McCollum on Shrader’s right knee put everything in motion to get the Colts to this point. Shrader, the promising young kicker who won the job last offseason, suffered a torn ACL and MCL, ending his season and putting the Colts right back on the kicker carousel.

When veteran Michael Badgley faltered, Indianapolis pounced on Grupe after New Orleans released the third-year kicker, believing that the Colts’ operational consistency could fix what was ailing a kicker who’d missed eight field goals for the Saints.

Grupe made every kick down the stretch, including a franchise-record 60-yard bomb to give the Colts a late lead in Seattle.

The way Grupe kicked, it was something of a surprise that another team didn’t recognize the difference in operational consistency and sign Grupe, a free agent, as a potential starter.

“There was definitely interest, and he had options, but no matter where he was going to go, unless you're like one of the top-end kickers in the league, he was going to have to compete somewhere,” Mason said. “Obviously, he felt really comfortable with his opportunity to compete here based off how the season ended for him, and we're really happy that he decided to come back.”

When Grupe signed, Shrader’s injury still left uncertainty about how he’d recover.

A torn ACL in the kicking leg is a rare injury for the position — by being in motion, the kicking leg isn’t often planted when a player takes a hit — and it was unclear how he’d respond.

Two months later, the Colts are getting glowing reports.

“All signs are that he’s ahead of schedule,” Mason said. “He’s not with us at practice with him being on the Injured Reserve list, but he has been kicking. He started off kicking deflated footballs. Now he's kicking full PSI footballs. And from all indications that I'm hearing, he looks like he's not even injured as far as when he's kicking. He's got really good juice on his kicks, good pop on the ball.”

Leg strength is often what separates kickers at the NFL level in an age when the position is more accurate than ever. The league average for field goal percentage was .856 last season, and 11 kickers made at least seven field goals of 50 yards or longer.

“Usually when you're talking leg talent, you're talking about the height at the line of scrimmage, so how much height and trajectory do they get on the kick ???” Mason said. “And then, who has an ability to make more from 50-plus and 60-plus ???”

The answer to the second question is not easy.

Grupe was one of the 11 kickers who made at least seven field goals from 50 yards or longer, and even though Shrader is only 1 of 2 in his short career from distance, he actually profiles as the player with a little bit stronger leg.

“They have different mechanics,” Mason said. “Grupe is a jab and two-step guy, where Spencer’s a two-step guy. Spencer is a little bit bigger and more powerful of a leg, being he’s a slightly more statured guy, but Grupe has more experience.”

Mason is typically looking for two things in a kicker battle.

Leg strength and mental makeup.

But he coached Shrader and Grupe at the college level in addition to their time with the Colts, so Mason knows his two kickers are made of the right stuff, and he knows they have the leg strength.

How he decides between them will come down to who makes more kicks in camp. Grupe and Shrader will likely kick three times a week in training camp, and kicks in scrimmages or preseason games will be weighted more heavily than practice kicks.

Who makes more kicks is the easiest way to determine a winner. If the numbers are close, though, the next level is weighing kicks that are down the middle versus kicks on the edges of the uprights, and if that’s all square, Mason will have to make a decision based on upside and talent alone.

Shrader made it easy last year, soundly beating out Maddux Trujillo for the job.

Mason isn’t expecting this competition to be the same way.

“Sometimes it's easy, and one guy's kicking considerably better and more consistent than the other,” Mason said. “I think in this situation with two talented kickers, it'll probably be a difficult one, and it'll be exciting to kind of play all the way out through training camp.”

o

[Colts And Orioles]

o



* * * ) This article was written 5 weeks ago, on June 9th of 2026.




Blake Grupe vs. Spencer Shrader ...... Everything You Need to Know About Colts’ Kicker Competition

(By Noah Compton)

https://www.si.com/nfl/colts/onsi/bl...er-competition


This Indianapolis Colts' competition between 2 former Notre Dame kickers should make for a lively position battle this summer.




The Indianapolis Colts enter 2026 with an apparent kicking competition between 2 proven players, both of whom were near-perfect for the team last season ...... Spencer Shrader and Blake Grupe.

It's as intriguing a situation as it is a rare occurrence, as there are hardly 32 viable placekickers in the NFL at any given time. The art of kicking footballs has changed over recent years and has since resulted in a new wave of deep-ball scorers, but still, finding consistency remains as difficult a challenge as ever, and yet the Colts are rostering multiple viable options going into 2026.

We will be breaking down each of the Colts kicker's resume to date, what led them to this competition in question, and special teams coordinator Brian Mason's grasp on the situation as Indianapolis kicks off their 3-day mandatory mini-camp on Tuesday.


Spencer Shrader Competition


Shrader was essentially a nomad to kick off his NFL career, being tossed around from multiple teams throughout his rookie season, jumping from practice squad to practice squad after suiting up as a spot-starter on gamedays.

The Indianapolis Colts initially signed Shrader as an undrafted free agent prior to the 2024 season, but with Matt Gay still on the roster, he was relegated to practice-squad duties. The Colts would then waive, sign, and release him weekly throughout the 2024 season, with Shrader getting his first bit of run with the Colts, where he took on kick-off duties and nailed all 3 of his extra-point attempts in his NFL debut against the Houston Texans in relief duty for Gay (Gay had a hernia.)

The New York Jets and the Kansas City Chiefs would copy the Colts late in the 2024 season while they dealt with kicking injuries of their own, when they subsequently signed Shrader to their practice-squads, signed him to the active roster for game-day duties, and then sent him right back to the practice-squad after he suited up.

Despite this constant turnover, Shrader went 3-3 on field goal attempts and 6-6 on extra points in his 2 games with the Chiefs, and 2-2 on field goal attempts in his lone game with the Jets.

Shrader's (albeit small sample size of) perfection amidst adversity, coupled with Matt Gay's quick regression, resulted in the Colts moving on from the previous most-expensive free-agent kicker contract and turning to a young player who had flashed greatness.

And the Colts immediately thereafter saw dividends be paid as Shrader kicked off his 1st season as a full-time starter in promising fashion, going 13-14 on field goal attempts (92.9%) and nailing all 14 of his extra point attempts. This start quickly took notice after Shrader nailed a 45-yard game-winning kick against the Denver Broncos in Week 2 of last season, one that came after an infamous leveraging call that wiped away Shrader's initial 60-yard miss and ultimately allowed him to right his wrongs in the moment.

His last extra-point attempt of the year came against the Las Vegas Raiders, where an inadvertent collision resulted in his aforementioned ACL/MCL tear which abruptly ended his season after 5 games.

The Colts soon turned to a familiar face in Michael Badgley for the next several games. The Money Badger did well on field goal attempts during this stretch, going 10-11 on such kicks, but his 86.7% success rate on extra-points proved to be too big of a hurdle ...... this led the Colts to pivot to Blake Grupe, who had been recently cut from the New Orleans Saints due to poor performance.


Blake Grupe Competition


As noted, Grupe was cut from the Saints after going 18-26 on field goal attempts through 11 games. The mid-season move from Badgley to Grupe was questioned by fans and analysts alike, as Grupe's field goal percentage at the time was among the league's worst rates, but the Colts were prioritizing extra-point success, so they were fine taking the risk during a stretch where not much else could go wrong.

Grupe immediately flipped a switch upon landing in Indianapolis, where he was perfect from the field during his 5 games of relief for the Colts. Grupe went 11-11 on field goal attempts and 10-10 on extra-point attempts during this stretch.

The Colts were just looking for someone to make the chip-shots, and in return, they received a viable kicking option to end the year.

During 3 seasons as the New Orleans Saints' placekicker, Grupe went 75-94 on field goal attempts (79.8%) and 86-88 on extra-point attempts (97.7%.) His 5-game stretch for the Colts in 2025 is more than likely an outlier regarding his full resume, but this could have very well been the new change of scenery that any struggling player, especially a kicker, hopes for.


Brian Mason's Grasp on Competition


Mason is entering his 4th season as the Colts' special teams coordinator after he joined head coach Shane Steichen's first-ever coaching staff prior to the 2023 season.

His first-time tenure as an NFL coordinator saw a rocky start, but has seen improvement in each season since ...... now the Colts are entering 2026 with high expectations from its special teams unit.

The Colts' kicking competition is set to be a much more lively affair than its competitions of years past. Typically, teams will roster a 2nd kicker on its 90-man roster throughout the summer in case the starter is injured and/or regresses ...... this time, however, features 2 kickers who are both poised to reclaim the role that they left the 2025 season with.

“I think it's unique. Certainly, with 2 proven guys probably at this level, is certainly unique. That's something ...... I coached in college for 14 years. There was a number of years where we'd have 2 good kickers that are competing. Obviously, in college you have a different roster make-up with more guys, and certainly more specialists on the roster. Last year, we had a kicking competition between 2 kickers who were a little bit maybe more unproven. Similar competition and structure in the way that we'll do that," Mason explained of the kicking competition between Shrader and Grupe earlier this off-season.

"It's exciting. Certainly, we have 2 guys whom we think are deserving and talented enough to be starting kickers in the NFL that are both great teammates, do all of the right things, and work really hard. So certainly, it's going to be exciting to see how those 2 guys compete. I think that it'll bring the best out of both of them, and I think that one of them will certainly win the competition, be starting for the Colts, and one of them will be fortunate enough to start for somebody else. But I think that they're both going to be starting kickers this year in the NFL.”

The Colts' kicking competition is even more of an interesting situation considering how both kickers, as well as Brian Mason himself, joined the NFL after spending time at the college ranks at Notre Dame. Grupe was Mason's last kicker at Notre Dame, whereas Shrader's lone year at said college came the year following, but previous bias is no factor considering the fact that jobs are on the line.

Spencer Shrader is viewed as the leader of the race between he and Blake Grupe as mandatory mini-camp kicks off for the Colts on Tuesday. Mason said that Shrader is 'ahead of schedule' when it comes to his rehab process, but don't count Grupe out just yet.

As Mason suggested, it seems most likely that the 'loser' of this position battle will land on their feet and become a starter elsewhere, so the Colts are essentially entering a win-win scenario as summer break approaches.

o