This year only one member of the Stanford football team will be anxiously watching the NFL draft, hoping for his chance to make an impact on the league. That player is none other than senior kicker Joshua Karty, a three-year starter and 2023 Pro Football Focus first team all-American.
Predicting when players will get drafted and by what teams is notoriously difficult for all but the most highly touted upper first round prospects. With that being said, it is still interesting to see where top analysts are projecting a player to go, what teams that player is likely to land at, and what competition that player faces from their fellow draft hopefuls.
The consensus amongst analysts is that Karty will likely get drafted somewhere around the 200th overall pick, making him a projected sixth rounder. Analysts at NFL.com have Karty projected higher, somewhere in the 4th or 5th round, but special teams players can be difficult to project. A team might have dire need for a kicker and take one as early as the 4th round, or in a bad year great special teams players may go undrafted and face the uphill battle of signing with teams as an undrafted free agent. For late round picks it is often most insightful to see how a player compares to others in the draft class.
This year’s kicker class is small. ESPN’s analysts only bothered to rate three kickers in their annual mock drafts. Competing with Karty for those coveted NFL draft and roster slots are Alabama kicker Will Reichard and Arkansas’ Cam Little. The three have comparable stats. Reichard has the highest make percentage at 88 percent (beating out Little’s 83, and Karty’s 85). This close statistical parity means that there is no consensus best kicker in the draft.
The Patriots, Giants, Rams, and Commanders all struggled with field goals last season, and could be potential destinations for Karty, assuming they do not seek to find a solution through free agency. With great kickers in short supply, it’s certainly not out of the question for any team to take a late round chance on Karty.
The first round of the draft is set to begin at 5 p.m. PST this Thursday in Detroit. The six subsequent rounds of this year’s draft will take place over the following two days.