Dave Toub reveals the Chiefs may have struck gold twice with Spencer Shrader following in Harrison Butker's footsteps
When your starting kicker goes down in the National Football League, you're not always left with the best of options. That wasn't the case for the Kansas City Chiefs when Harrison Butker suffered a midweek knee injury last week. Kansas City actually found themselves in a very familiar situation. They signed K Spencer Shrader off the New […]
When your starting kicker goes down in the National Football League, you're not always left with the best of options. That wasn't the case for the Kansas City Chiefs when Harrison Butker suffered a midweek knee injury last week.
Kansas City actually found themselves in a very familiar situation. They signed K Spencer Shrader off the New York Jets practice squad, just as they did in 2017 when they signed Harrison Butker off the Carolina Panthers practice squad.
That's not the only similarity the two players share.
"Every year we rate all the kickers coming out (in the NFL draft)," Toub explained. "(Spencer Shrader) was a lot like (Harrison) Butker. He was our No. 1 guy coming out, we had him number one on the list. So, he was a guy, obviously, we targeted– we looked at and we liked him early, and then he was on the Jets practice squad, so we took a shot and got him, and we're happy we got him. He's got a strong leg. We haven't seen a lot of him, but in practice, he's looked really good."
Shrader had a stellar debut with the Chiefs in Week 11 against the Bills, going 3-for-3 on field goal attempts. He essentially verified what the team had come to know during offseason scouting evaluations.
"We had the combine and we invited a whole bunch of kickers from all over," Toub said. "It was really big. It was a showcase. We had a lot more kickers there, and he came out as the best guy at the combine. So, you're looking at the consistency of his technique, the rotation of the ball, the leg strength, and then we have a kick competition where you start off short, and you move the ball back, back, back, back. He did the best out of everybody. So, it was clear-cut that he was the better guy."
The rookie hasn't yet attempted a field goal for the Chiefs, but the team has a lot of faith in his ability. Toub says he's got a strong leg, long-range, and they'd trust him in game-defining field goal situations.
"He's got that in him. He hit a couple of 65-yarders at practice the other day." Toub said. "So he's got a really strong leg. In fact, we had to move him back, just when we first started out, hitting extra points, because he was hitting them over the net. We were losing footballs. So we had that, we had to move him back. So, he's got a really, really strong leg. He's young. He's excited to be here, and, you know, he loves the operation and everything that we've got going on."
Butker is expected back sometime this season after having surgery to trim his meniscus. That said, Shrader should be able to give Butker the time he needs to recover from his knee injury. He has everything to gain from this experience and doesn't seem keen on letting the opportunity in front of him go by the wayside.