Sir Purr
Well-known member
- Mar 16, 2019
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As he waited for another chance that wasn’t guaranteed to come, the “swole kicker” started to train high school athletes in nearby Fredericksburg, Va. It was a backup plan in case the phone never rang again.
It did in April.
The Giants were on the other line, and while it was an opportunity, it wasn’t much of one. Because New York already had a Pro Bowl kicker in Aldrick Rosas, who went 32-for-33 on field goal attempts last season, Slye had no real chance to stick around long. He was cut after a week. Then, after the Giants brought him back on the eve of training camp, Slye was released four days later.
Such is the life of an undrafted guy with a dream.
“Everyone sees a kid get drafted, they go into camp, they buy a nice car, they buy a house, they have everything kind of set up,” Slye said. “But when I first got signed with the Giants, I went back home, and everyone was like, ‘What are you going to do with the million dollars?’ I’m like, ‘I got a $500-dollar signing bonus, and half of it went to the hotel I just paid for, and the other half is probably paying for the gas I’ll need to drive back.’
“There’s a whole other path that people don’t realize, and I’ve been living that path recently.”
But the road that led Slye to a pair of pit stops up North indirectly gave him his big break.
The Giants’ special teams coordinator is Thomas McGaughey, who spent 2016-17 in a similar role with the Panthers. When McGaughey left, Chase Blackburn took over the unit, and the two stayed in touch. So when Gano’s non-kicking leg started to act up early in training camp, one of Blackburn’s calls for help went to his former boss.
“The time came when we had to think about bringing another guy in, so I reached out to Thomas for information on Joey, who they had just released,” Blackburn said. “He was very optimistic about Joey, so we decided to give him a chance, and he’s made the most of it to date.”
When Slye signed with the Panthers on August 1, few thought much of it. The assumption was he was just a camp leg. When he made all three of his attempts in the preseason opener at Chicago, he was a neat story that could potentially turn into trade collateral. But as the preseason went on and Gano remained sidelined, the possibility that Slye could have an extended stay in Carolina quietly gained momentum. It helped that he kept hitting kicks.
Slye went 7-for-8 on field goals in the preseason, with three of those makes coming from 50-plus yards. His only miss was when the Steelers blocked a 48-yarder last Thursday. So when the Panthers decided to put Gano on season-ending injured reserve, Slye’s success made the move easier to stomach. But for this feel-good story to continue to — feel good — Slye now has to excel in games that count.
“I like those adrenaline situations,” he assured. “When I was a kid, I was a pitcher in baseball, and a lot of times I would load the bases. Like I’d walk three batters, then I’d strike out three in a row. It was just because as soon as the pressure got on me, I locked in a little bit more. I feel like I thrive in those situations.”
While we wait to see how a first-year kicker handles the pressure of a regular season, Slye also needs to prove he’s past problems that haunted him at Virginia Tech, where he made just 72 percent of his kicks.