Badgley to miss season after suffering significant injury
The Detroit Lions have suffered their first significant injury of training camp.
Veteran kicker Michael Badgley suffered an injury on Thursday getting ready for practice, Lions head coach Dan Campbell announced Friday morning. Campbell said the injury will require surgery and Badgley will be placed on injured reserve and miss the season.
“I feel awful for Badgley, man,” Campbell said. “He worked his tail off to get ready for this season and he was having a good spring and was ready for camp. It’s tough.”
Campbell said the team has already brought in some kickers to work out but aren’t in a hurry to sign one to compete with Jake Bates unless it’s the right guy.
Badgley replaced Riley Patterson as Detroit’s place kicker the last month of the regular season last year. He was 4-for-4 on field goals to end the season and was 3-for-3 on field goals in the playoffs, including a 54 yarder in the Wild Card win over Los Angeles, and he was 11-for-11 on extra points in the playoffs. He has a track record of consistency in this league with a career 82.4 field goal percentage.
Bates made a name for himself in the UFL this spring because of the big leg he displayed. He made 17-of-22 field goals this season playing his home games at Ford Field. He made a game-winning 64-yard field goal in the Michigan Panthers’ season-opening win over the St. Louis Battlehawks and had two other 60-plus-yard field goals this season.
He was 6-for-6 kicking in the team portion of practice Thursday from distances starting in the mid-20s going out to 53 yards.
“It’s big time,” Bates said after practice Thursday when asked how important it is to prove his consistency in training camp. “It’s big time for anybody but especially in the kicker position. You are judged off how consistent you can be every single day. That’s something I work really hard on and hopefully I can keep showing.”
Campbell said they’ll try to put Bates in as many pressure situations in camp moving forward to evaluate if he’s ready to be the full-time kicker for a team that has Super Bowl aspirations.
“He has kicked in games. I know it’s not the same thing, but a little bit of it is the only way you’re going to know is you have to put him out there and see how he does,” Campbell said. “Right now he looks pretty good, and it’s early, but he has a big leg and I like his personality, his aura.
“He’s got some confidence about him, which is nice. He seems pretty consistent about the way he goes about his business. Kind of the same guy every day, which I appreciate. We’ll just see. We’ll keep working through practice and see where this goes.”