Bills' K Tyler Bass: Buffalo's No. 23 Player Returns After Missing 2025

As the team enjoys its summer break, Bills On SI will unveil its Top 25 Player Rankings (based upon expected impact) for the 2026 season. K Tyler Bass, the lone specialist on the list, lands at No. 23.

A year after Matt Prater handled the kicking duties for the Buffalo Bills, the team will receive one of its regular specialists back after he missed all of 2025.

Kicker Tyler Bass suffered hip and groin injuries in the preseason that were eventually linked to a sports hernia and underwent surgery for them in December.

Bass, who agreed to a restructured contract in March, has yet to kick in front of the media this offseason. Although his injuries could hinder his performance, Bass will still play a critical role in 2026.

Why is Bass so important?

TYLER BASS!!!!!!!!!!!!

📺: @paramountplus pic.twitter.com/0YUMp5a5qI
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) November 3, 2024

Kickers are some of the most undervalued players in football. Even though they can grow on trees, having a consistent kicker can tilt the tide of a game in a team's favor.

The Bills have experienced both sides of this phenomenon with Bass. The downside was evident in the 2024 AFC divisional round against the Kansas City Chiefs. The seventh-year pro missed a potential game-tying 44-yard field goal in the final two minutes, which caused the two most hated words in Bills history, "wide right", to resurface.

Meanwhile, Buffalo's trust in Bass can be a big boon for it at times. An example was in Week 9 of the 2024 season against the Miami Dolphins. With five seconds left, he drilled a game-winning 61-yard field goal, a franchise record, to defeat Miami 30-27.

Bass went 24-for-29 on field goals in 2023 and 2024, and he's been a reliable weapon from beyond 50 yards, with a career mark of 16-for-23 from such a distance. Bass also has a career percentage of 96.4 on extra points.

The one thing that remains uncertain with Bass is that he is not used to the kickoff ruleset introduced ahead of the 2025 season, but his career touchback percentage of 60.8 could be something to work around in 2026.

Bass' background

Dec 22, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; Bills place kicker Tyler Bass (2) kicks an extra point against the New England Patriots during the second half at Highmark Stadium. | Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

Bass was born on February 14, 1997 in Columbia, South Carolina and played football and soccer at Dutch Fork High School in nearby Irmo, winning the Chris Sailer award as the nation's top high school placekicker in his senior season. He committed to play for the Georgia Southern Eagles on January 31, 2015.

After redshirting in his true freshman year, Bass led the Sun Belt Conference with 19 field goals made in 2018 and 20 in 2019. He also led the conference with 102 points scored in his redshirt junior season.

The Bills selected Bass in the sixth round of the 2020 NFL Draft at No. 188 overall. Since then, he has hit on 84.5% of his field-goal attempts for Buffalo and earned a four-year, $21 million extension before the 2023 season.

The rest of the Top 25 so far

25. RB Ty Johnson, June 16
24. CB Maxwell Hairston, June 17

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