The Saints Sign Cade York to Their Practice Squad
The New Orleans Saints have signed Cade York to their practice squad after a tryout on Tuesday. Both York and Justin Tucker participated in the tests on Tuesday. The decision comes after Saints kicker Blake Grupe missed two field goals against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday and was released by the team on Monday. Grupe missed eight kicks this season, but the Saints hadn’t called any kicker for a tryout until this week. The test on Tuesday was Tucker’s first since he was reinstated by the NFL on November 11. Tucker was suspended for the first 10 weeks of the 2025 season due to violations of the NFL’s personal conduct policy. Tucker, who kicked for the Baltimore Ravens for 13 seasons, was released by the team in May. York, 24, was selected by the Cleveland Browns in the fourth round of the 2022 draft from LSU, but was only there for one season. Recently, he was in Cincinnati, where he kicked five games in place of the injured Evan McPherson. Saints coach Kellen Moore said Monday they wanted to bring in Tucker for a tryout because of his years of success in Baltimore, where he was selected for seven Pro Bowls and was named first-team All-Pro five times. Tucker, 36, only made 73.3 percent of his kicks in his last season in Baltimore, a career low.Tucker was cut with three years remaining on a four-year, $22 million contract extension signed in 2022. The extension made him the league’s highest-paid kicker at the time. Grupe, 27, has been with the Saints for three seasons after being signed as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2023. He has competed with practice squad kicker Charlie Smyth at training camp for the last two seasons. Smyth, who arrived at the Saints through the International Player Pathway, has never kicked in a regular season game. Grupe made only 69.2 percent of his kicks this season, a career low.He’s been a very good kicker in this league for a long time and has had a lot of success and has been a leader for Baltimore for a long time. He’s been one of their leaders for a long period of time with a very successful team and obviously there have been some things that have been unfortunate. He’s gone through an experience and I think it’s about gathering what that experience was and we’ll evaluate the football aspect and we’ll also evaluate everything else.
Kellen Moore
