Why NY Giants K Graham Gano Will Improve His 2025 Field Goal Percentage

While it might seem like solid NFL kickers are a dime a dozen in the modern game, where most can hit from incredible ranges, it is even harder to find one that can be clutch year in and year out for as long as New York Giants kicker Graham Gano has in his 16-year career.

From his days in Carolina to when he joined the Giants in 2020, the 38-year-old leg has seemingly defied the laws of aging to become one of the most reliable options as a grizzled veteran.

He has almost regularly finished in the top-10 kickers in the league with his signature long boots, for which the Giants were once no stranger when he was a foe.

Daring back to his rookie season with the Washington Redskins in 2009, Gano has appeared in at least 16 games 10 times, including eight consecutive seasons from 2013 to 2022.

He has averaged an 83.7% field goal made percentage and converted at least 68% of his attempts from 40 yards distance or longer.

Most Giants fans won’t forget when Gano nailed a ridiculous game winner from 63 yards out, his current career-high, for the Panthers back in the 2018 season when Carolina beat New York in a 33-31 thriller on the road.

Even on their side, Gano has knocked in long shots of at least 53 yards distance and spent three seasons as one of the Giants' highest scorers. A feat that couldn’t be ignored when one considers the offense has been lackluster for most of his tenure with the team.

As they say, the record for Father Time is undefeated, and there have been signs that Gano’s age and dwindling health might finally be catching up to him. He has suffered consecutive lower-body injuries over the past two seasons, which have significantly slashed his effectiveness as the Giants’ insurance policy on special teams.

Those ailments–a knee injury in 2023 and a hamstring injury, which Gano suffered in Week 2 of the 2024 season while attempting to chase down a kick return by Washington’s Austin Ekeler that went the distance–have brought the kicker’s impact to the Giants production on Sundays down to some of his lowest numbers as he’s only been available for a combined 18 games.

Seeing a trend like this from a player way past his prime and the Giants’ midseason replacements struggling to pick up the slack, the team could have a question mark at one of their most valuable positions as they head into training camp and see how Gano looks after recovering all offseason.

Much like Adam Vinatieri, who launched footballs through the uprights way past the age of 40, Gano still believes he has some juice left in the tank, or better, his legs. So do we, and one need not look further than the veteran’s resume to see the capability of producing a bounce-back campaign.

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Graham Gano is the Epitome of "The More, The Better"

New York Giants kicker Graham Gano — New York Giants place kicker Graham Gano | John Jones-Imagn Images

It’s hard to cast aspersions on Graham Gano’s performance before his injuries took their toll on his body. In his first three seasons with the Giants, the Florida State product never missed a contest and made as high as 96.9% of his field goals, including being nearly perfect from the 30-39 and 40-49 yard range and 20/25 from the 50+ yard range.

In addition, Gano was the one secret weapon that kept the franchise’s offense afloat during a stretch of immense mediocrity.

He scored 104+ points in each of those seasons in Blue and averaged over 7.0 points per game, all while the Giants held the NFL’s second-worst offense in two of them and repeated that feat during the 2024 season.

Without having their kicker as their security blanket to get onto the scoreboard, it’s fair to wonder how much worse the team’s offensive outlook would have been in those campaigns as the Giants continued to falter behind the shortcomings of former quarterback Daniel Jones.

Once Gano was sidelined in consecutive seasons, both of those elements went out the window. The Giants’ offense saw their overall point differential drop to -142, which was the second-worst in the last five years. Gano would miss eight total field goals, dropping his efficiency to as low as 64.7%, which marks his career low.

Although Gano also had to deal with the weakness of the Giants’ entire special teams unit, which hasn’t ranked higher than 24th during his tenure, one can’t discount the major factor of injuries that left a lot to be desired in his numbers.

It makes sense that the less time a kicker has on the field with opportunities to punch in points, the more negatively their annual resumes will appear.

That means the closer to a full slate that Gano earns with the Giants, the more he will perform at his best and give them the clutch-worthy boots they’ve seen him make time and time again.

And if you don’t believe it, take a look at Gano’s 16-year resume to see how he has classically responded to a disappointing campaign. In the 2012 season with the Panthers, he was limited to six games due to a late-season signing and only went 81.8% from the tee.

The following year, when he won the starting role, Gano increased his stats to 88.9% and more than doubled the number of extra point attempts made (42).

He saw another noticeable decline from 2014-16, where his conversion rate dropped to as low as 78.9%. However, he rebounded with another full slate to post his second-best mark of 96.7%, missing only one field goal for the entire 2017 season.

If Gano remains healthy this summer into the regular season, history suggests he will once again bounce back with an 81.8% effort in 2024 and return to being an elite source of offense.

Until proven otherwise, the Giants are going to have to lean on Gano to pile a few extra points into their column to compete with the best teams on their schedule. He has to rebound in 2025, and while we believe he will, it will become one of the team’s biggest needs of the following offseason if he doesn’t.

Graham Gano is the Epitome of "The More, The Better"

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