The Tampa Bay Buccaneers shuffled up their kicking situation. The organization released Chandler Catanzaro and signed Cairo Santos to replace him.
According to ESPN’s Jenna Laine, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers released kicker Chandler Catanzaro. NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport also reported that the Bucs signed Cairo Santos.
Tampa Bay worked out Santos on October 26.
Santos spent training camp with the New York Jets before landing with the Rams for a pair of games. He made five of his six field goal attempts with L.A. as well as five of his six extra point attempts.
Santos dealt with injuries in 2017, playing in only a pair of games, but he was consistent with the Kansas City Chiefs.
For his career, Santos has made 84.1 percent of his field goals and 95.7 percent of his extra points. Santos struggles with kicks beyond 50 yards (53.8. percent), but he is money inside of 40.
Tampa Bay should feel fortunate to land Santos at this point of the season. With multiple organizations struggling to find a consistent kicker, the Bucs managed to snag one of the best options on the market.
The Buccaneers have been desperate for stability at placekicker for a decade. Hopefully, Santos can reverse the trend and bring consistency to the kicking game.
Sadly, Catanzaro wasn’t the solution. Tampa signed him to an expensive contract back in March.
For both his field goal attempts and extra point tries, he put up career-low numbers at 73.3 percent and 85.2 percent, respectively.
It was disappointing to see how poorly Catanzaro performed this season. If it wasn’t for his 59-yard game winner against the Cleveland Browns a few weeks ago, Tampa might have cut him in Week 7.
His final game with the Bucs saw him miss a pair of field goals as Tampa Bay fell to the Washington Redskins, 16-3.