New York Giants 2018 NFL Draft Target: Daniel Carlson

The New York Giants need to improve their kicking game, both on kickoffs and field goals, in 2018, and Daniel Carlson should be a late round target for them.

The New York Giants had plenty of issues in 2018. From coaching all the way down, the team was a complete train wreck, to put it mildly. With all of the issues, one part of the team that had major issue, but was overlooked, was the kicking game.

Football is a three-phase game, and no matter how the fans or media want to portray them, kickers are an important factor in the game. They score points, and they can establish field position on kickoffs. Aldrick Rosas did neither well in 2017.

Some slack can be given for being a rookie, but there are limits to that when Rosas is among the worst to play his position in the NFL. He was 27th in the NFL in scoring, 25th in field goals made, and third-worst among place kickers (with 25 attempts or more) in field goal percentage.

When it comes to kickoffs, he wasn’t much better. He was 28th in the NFL in total and 38th in the league in touchback percentage. In addition to that, he was one of only three kickers in the NFL to have two kickoffs go out of bounds. That’s unacceptable — which brings us to the 2018 NFL Draft and Auburn’s Daniel Carson.

Carlson had a career field goal percentage of 80.7 for the Tigers, which is 52nd all time (of 251 qualifiers) in college football history. That’s not too shabby. He also has a career 70.2 percent rate of touchbacks. He also has 41 career punts, in case of emergency. Carlson has only missed six field goals in his career inside of 40 yards with 44 career field goals of 40 yards or more.

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With their picks ending in the fifth round (for now), the Giants should consider him there if he’s available. He’d bring and immediate upgrade to that position.