Indianapolis Colts waive kicker Rodrigo Blankenship after miscues in season opener

INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts have made their decision.

Indianapolis is waiving kicker Rodrigo Blankenship, a person with knowledge of the situation confirmed to IndyStar, after the third-year kicker missed a game-winning, 42-yard field goal attempt on Sunday and sent two kickoffs out of bounds in crunch time, costing the Colts precious field position.

The person requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the move publicly. The NFL Network first reported the move.

Indianapolis is signing former Colts kicker Chase McLaughlin and rookie Lucas Havrisik to the practice squad, a person with knowledge of the moves told IndyStar on Tuesday, and will likely elevate one to the active roster before Sunday’s game against the Jaguars in Jacksonville.

Blankenship, who had beaten out Jake Verity to open the season with the starting job for the third consecutive year, opened his Colts career with a promising rookie year, then suffered a hip injury and missed three kicks against Baltimore last season, prompting Indianapolis to leave Blankenship on injured reserve even after he got healthy.

Colts head coach Frank Reich indicated a move might be coming on Monday, stopping short of saying he still had unshakable confidence in Blankenship.

“If you play long enough, you’re going to have a bad day, or bad days. Your confidence is going to waver. It’s how you respond to that, and it’s everybody, there’s no exception,” Reich said. “Obviously, as we evaluate that and how we feel about it, you consider all those things, and then it’s a question of hey, guy had a bad day, can he bounce back? Do we have the patience for a guy to bounce back? Those are the things you think through and talk through.”

Reich and general manager Chris Ballard met twice Monday.

The Colts liked Blankenship enough to give him multiple chances over three seasons.

“Rod has been pretty consistent to this point,” special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone said. “He didn’t have a great performance, obviously, in the game. He mishit two balls on kickoffs, and then the miss at the end of the game. I think Rod is a good kicker.”

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But consistency became an issue at the end of Blankenship’s rookie season.

Blankenship made 30 of his first 33 kicks in the NFL, but he missed two field goals in the finale of his rookie season, then missed a critical 33-yard attempt in the playoffs against Buffalo. Brought back because of the promise he’d shown as a rookie, Blankenship injured his hip against Baltimore, missed three kicks against the Ravens and went on injured reserve.

Indianapolis stuck with veteran Michael Badgley even after Blankenship returned, an indication the team had questions about the young kicker. Blankenship always struggled from distance, making just 3 of 8 attempts from 46 yards or more in three seasons.

The consistency inside the 45 faltered.

Beginning with that season finale, Blankenship made 16 of 23 field goals, or 69.5 percent, the last miss coming on that 42-yard attempt with a win on the line against Houston this weekend.

“It didn’t feel great coming off my foot,” Blankenship said. “I just didn’t make contact how I wanted to. I didn’t really hit the ball square and had kind of a lazy follow-through.”

Blankenship’s two botched kickoffs also played a factor, an afterthought that became a real consideration when punter and kickoff specialist Rigoberto Sanchez tore his Achilles tendon during training camp.

Matt Haack, the punter the Colts signed to fill in for Sanchez, is not a kickoff specialist, and Indianapolis needs consistency in the kickoff game.

“It’s a luxury to have a punter who kicks off and kicks off as well as Rigo,” Ventrone said. “Back to Rod and his development on kickoffs, he has done a pretty good job. … We’ve done a good job of getting his kickoffs to a level where we were comfortable playing him in a game like that.”

But Blankenship faltered in both responsibilities when the Colts needed it most on Sunday, and the team decided to make a move.

A whirlwind of a rookie season ultimately brought McLaughlin to Indianapolis to relieve an injured and ineffective Adam Vinatieri at the end of the 2019 season. McLaughlin made 5 of 6 field goals and all 11 extra points for the Colts in the final four games that season, earning a shot at the full-time job in 2020.

Ironically, McLaughlin lost a training camp competition to Blankenship in 2020, sending him criss-crossing the NFL again after kicking for five different teams — three as an injury replacement in the regular season — as a rookie.

McLaughlin made 4 of 5 field goals and 5 of 6 extra points in stints with the Jaguars and Jets in 2020, then took over as Cleveland’s kicker early in the 2021 season and made 15 of 21 field goals, along with 36 of 37 extra points.

The Browns cut McLaughlin in May after spending a fourth-round pick on rookie kicker Cade York.

The other competitor now in the Colts locker room is still looking for his first field goal of any kind in the NFL.

Havrisik, an undrafted rookie out of Arizona, tried out at the Colts’ rookie minicamp in May, but the team ultimately decided to stick with a competition between Blankenship and former Ravens kicker Jake Verity, a competition Blankenship won handily.

The rookie made just 64.2% of his kicks in college — his best season was 85.7% in 2020 — but he has a strong leg. Arizona used Havrisik as its long kick and kickoff specialist in 2021.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis Colts waive kicker Rodrigo Blankenship; open competition