The Indianapolis Colts brought in 10 undrafted rookie free agents to the roster, announcing the official list on Wednesday. Leading the way will be former Georgia kicker Rodrigo Blankenship.
To prove how much the Colts wanted to bring him in to compete for the job, the front office gave Blankenship a signing bonus worth $20,000. For an undrafted kicker, that’s pretty significant.
Blankenship will be competing with Chase McLaughlin for the kicking job during the offseason. McLaughlin was the one who replaced Adam Vinatieri during the final month of the season after the veteran was placed on the injured reserve list and had to get knee surgery. He was 5-of-6 on field-goal attempts and made all 11 of his extra-point attempts.
Blankenship had an extremely productive career at Georgia. He was perfect on all 200 extra-point attempts during his collegiate career while converting 87 of 90 (82.5%) field-goal attempts. During his senior season, he was 27 of 33 (81.8%) on field goals.
It will be interesting to see who comes out on top, but the Colts officially have a kicker competition on their hands.
