The Colts had one of the more unusual roster battles in the NFL this summer.
Spencer Shrader and Blake Grupe were both good enough to be starting kickers. Grupe had been perfect for Indianapolis after joining the team late in 2025, making all 11 of his field-goal attempts and all 10 extra points, including a franchise-record 60-yarder. Shrader, meanwhile, was returning from the torn ACL and MCL that ended what had also been an excellent 2025 season. Before the injury, he had made 13/14 field goals and all 14 extra points. There really was not an obvious wrong choice.
Grupe was the more consistent kicker throughout much of training camp, while Shrader had some rough stretches. Once the games started, however, the competition flipped. Shrader went 5/5 during the preseason, including two field goals from at least 60 yards. Grupe finished 2/4. Special teams coordinator Brian Mason said at the time that game kicks would likely carry more weight when the final decision was made, and the Colts ultimately kept Shrader.
Five games later, that decision looks excellent!
Shrader is 16/16 on field goals this season, including 6/6 from beyond 50 yards. His only miss of any kind has been one extra point. He has the most makes of any kicker in the NFL and the most makes over 50 yards. Whether that makes him definitively the best kicker in football through five weeks is debatable, but there is not much of an argument that he belongs in that conversation.
Last Sunday in Pittsburgh might have been his best performance yet.
The Colts repeatedly moved the football before stalling in Steelers territory, and Shrader was basically their offense for large portions of the afternoon. He tied the franchise record with five field goals, opening the scoring from 57 yards and then drilling another from 56 later in the first quarter. He added makes from 22, 40 and 28 yards and finished responsible for 16 of Indianapolis’ 22 points.
The 57- and 56-yarders are the ones that stand out. Those are not kicks where simply making them is expected. Shrader hit both in an outdoor road grass environment in Pittsburgh and made them look routine. There weren’t even close to missing.
It follows a pattern we already saw during the preseason, and it is why I favored Shrader when the Colts had to make their decision.
Kicking competitions remind me a lot of what you see on a golf driving range. There are plenty of golfers who can stand on the range and hit beautiful shot after beautiful shot. The lie is perfect, the target never changes and there is nothing riding on the result. Put that same golfer on the 18th tee with water down the right side and something actually on the line, and suddenly the swing can look completely different.
Kicking is not exactly the same, but the pressure element is very comparable.
Training-camp kicks obviously matter. You want consistency, and Grupe deserved a lot of credit for being the better kicker during stretches of the summer. The Colts also had to figure out which player they trusted when the operation was live, defenders were coming off the edge and the kick actually counted and Shrader kept answering that question.
He did it during the preseason. He did it against Houston when he went 4-for-4 and hit the late field goal that won the game. Now he has gone into Pittsburgh and made five more, including two from well beyond 50 yards.
That does not mean Grupe was a bad option. The difficult part about the competition was that Indianapolis probably had two NFL-caliber kickers and knew it would have to let one leave. Grupe had already shown the previous season that he could handle the job.
The Colts simply picked the better one.
At least through five games, Shrader has given them almost everything they could have asked for. He has range, has been perfect on field goals and has already delivered in important situations. In a season where Indianapolis has had plenty of problems elsewhere on the roster, kicker has become one of the positions nobody has to worry about.
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