As we slowly inch closer to Tennessee Titans training camp in late July, there will be a lot of position battles to keep an eye on.
While most people will focus on the competitions on offense and defense, Tennessee’s special teams unit has a significant position battle of its own.
Right now, the Titans have two kickers on their roster who only have a combined one game of NFL experience between the two of them.
Caleb Shudak has one contest under his belt, going two-of-three in his only professional outing last season. Meanwhile, while Trey Wolff is a 2023 UDFA who is trying to steal the job away from a 2022 UDFA.
In a recent mailbag article, Jim Wyatt of Titans Online stated that Wolff was getting the majority of the work for a “stretch,” but the Iowa product did get back to kicking throughout minicamp.
Here is what Wyatt had to say about the kicking competition, including his count for makes and misses:
Caleb is back and kicking again. It was interesting to see kicker Trey Wolff get most of the work for a stretch there, but Caleb kicked on Wednesday and Thursday of this week’s minicamp. I’ve been charting the field goals in the open periods, and Shudak is 14-of-15, while Wolff, who signed as an undrafted free agent from Texas Tech earlier this offseason, is 29-of-32 during the open periods. Both of those guys have kicked well so far.
Judging by those numbers, this battle is practically as even as can be. Shudak may have a smaller sample size, but he has made approximately 93 percent of his kicks. Meanwhile, Wolff has a larger sample size but a slightly lower field goal percentage (approximately 90 percent).
Longtime beat writer, Paul Kuharsky, provided this nugget in terms of what he’s seen so far from both kickers:
The ball came off Caleb Shudak’s foot better and with a more consistent trajectory than it did with Trey Wolff yesterday, I thought.
Different trajectories are fine but I didn’t feel as if Wolff’s variations were necessarily intentional Tuesday. #Titans #Titans
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) June 7, 2023
This battle likely won’t be settled until the preseason, but as of right now, this could go either way.
