Graham Gano quandary should have Giants kicking themselves
Graham Gano of the New York Giants kicks a field goal during the second quarter against the Washington Commanders at Northwest Stadium on September 7, 2025. Credit: Getty Images
At the position at which production needs to be closer to automatic than any other on the team, the Giants are having some serious and understandable trust issues.
A week after Jude McAtamney missed two critical extra points in a one-point loss to the Broncos and was cut, three weeks after former Falcons Pro Bowler Younghoe Koo joined the Giants’ practice squad but was unable to win the weekly competitions to play in the games, and a month after Graham Gano injured his groin in pregame warm-ups to not only cost the Giants points in their loss to Kansas City but set off this cavalcade of kicking chaos, the Giants will face the Eagles on Sunday in Philadelphia.
One of the three — well, at least one of them, possibly two — will be handling the duties in that game.
Deciding which one has become an unnecessarily dramatic endeavor that will at least reach some clarity Saturday but might not be fully settled until an hour and a half before kickoff.
All of it could have been avoided.
Instead, the Giants stubbornly went into this season expecting Gano, 38, who missed eight games last season with injuries, to hold the job for the entire year. Then, when he couldn’t, they tried to replace him with spare pieces lying about the garage rather than investing in a kicker who could do the job competently and consistently.
That’s not a knock on McAtamney, a former Gaelic footballer and International Pathway player from Ireland who returned to the practice squad on a roster exemption this week after his brief departure and still has one game-day elevation left. The Giants never should have asked him to shoulder such responsibilities, and they certainly should have sensed the pending doom he brought forth in Denver when he missed an extra point against the Eagles in Week 6. He was in over his head.
The coaching staff knew it. In four games with McAtamney, they attempted only two field goals. On Sunday in Denver they punted from the Broncos’ 41 and 42. Those would have been long but makeable field-goal attempts in this era of NFL play.
So while the lack of defensive pressure and the turnover and the decisions to pass on third down or score with too much time remaining were all scrutinized in the epic collapse to the Broncos, all of it probably could have been avoided had general manager Joe Schoen and his crew fixed the kicking problem properly.
Now Gano is on the verge of returning. He was designated to return off injured reserve this week and has been kicking very well in practices, according to coach Brian Daboll. Gano said on Friday he feels “great” and is ready to play. The Giants listed him as questionable on the Friday injury report and figure to add him to the active roster Saturday.
But of course it’s not that simple. The Giants have been burned by Gano’s injuries in the past, not just against Kansas City this year. Last season, he was a late addition to the injury report the day before a game against Washington and struggled through the pregame warm-up before he pulled a hamstring covering the opening kickoff. The Giants lost that game, 21-18. The year before that, in 2023, Gano tried to tough it out through a knee injury against the Jets. He missed two field goals and the Giants lost in overtime.
That’s why Daboll said even if Gano plays Sunday, he might have one of the other kickers on the roster just in case. That would leave the team shorthanded at some other position.
“If we need to do it, we’ll do it,” Daboll said. “If Graham is good to go and feels comfortable, and the medical staff feels comfortable with it, then we won’t.”
Gulp.
And if they do have two active kickers for the game, it almost certainly will be Koo who gets the backup role after McAtamney’s flop last week. The last time Koo kicked in a game was the opener this season for Atlanta, when he missed a tying 44-yard attempt late in the loss to Tampa Bay. Last season, Koo converted 25 of 34 field goals, a .735 percentage that was the worst of his career by 13 points.
Double gulp.
Gano said he won’t be thinking about the past and the games he has cost the Giants over the years . . . some by missing kicks and others more glaringly by not being available to even attempt them.
“I’m going to play football,” he said on Friday. “I’ve just been trying to get back as quickly as I could.”
It should be noted that when the Giants signed Koo to their practice squad in September after Gano was injured, they had two players in for a tryout. Koo won the job over Lucas Havrisik.
Havrisik had another tryout with the Colts a week later and didn’t get that job, either. On Oct. 10, he worked out for the Packers and was signed just before their kicker, Brandon McManus, was unable to play that week. In two games, Havrisik has gone 4-for-4 on field goals and 6-for-6 on extra points. He kicked a 61-yard field goal in Arizona on Sunday, setting a franchise record.
Instead of having that, the Giants are stuck with their three options, all of them less than ideal.
Ain’t that a kick in the head.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
