you cant “pretty easily” find a kicker in UDFA. From 2013-2022, there were 44 total UDFA kickers making their debut in that 10 year span. Of those, only 24 have more than 25 career field goal attempts and only 12 are on a roster today. There isn’t a single undrafted kicker on a roster today who debuted in 2020, 2 from 2021 (including Matt Amendola who wasn’t on an opening day roster) and one from 2022
here are the undrafted kickers to debut between 2018-2022 with at least one FG attempt
Greg Joseph, Matt McCrane, Brett Maher, Michael Badgley, Joey Slye, Eddy Piniero, Jamie Gillan, Chase McLaughlin, Ty Long, Ryan Santoso, Kaare Vedvik, Elliot Fry, Rodrigo Blankenship, Taylor Russolino, Jonathan Brown, Sergio Castillo, Matthew Wright, Lirim Hajrullahu, Chris Naggar, Riley Patterson, Dominik Eberle, Brian Johnson, Matt Ammendola, Chris Blewitt, Cameron Dicker, Taylor Bertolet, Caleb Shudak, Nick Sciba
Of that entire group, the only one still with his original singing team Dicker
Joseph is on his 3rd team, McLaughlin 7th, Maher 3rd, Piniero 3rd, Patterson 2nd, Ammendola 4th, Slye 4th
of the other active guys with 20+ career FG attempts to debut in the last 10 years, Koo is on his 3rd team (including his brief practice squad stint with the Pats), Fairbairn and Boswell are still with their original team, Lutz and McManus on their 2nd and Santos his 5th
so you’re talking maybe 1-2 guys a year who end up having 5+ year careers and one every 2-4 years who becomes his signing team’s medium or long term kicker.
meanwhile, there’s about 14 kickers who get signed as undrafted rookies every per year (by my count 68 from 2018-2022 but I might have missed a few guys who only made it to minicamp)
so getting a good rookie kicker, even assuming you can identify the Dickers of the world from the Scibas and outbid other teams in UDFA for one, isn’t easy generally let alone as an undrafted player.
there are very few good kickers in the NFL. There might be a number of good undrafted ones in the league but that’s just a numbers game. Most kickers come into the league undrafted and the good ones play for a very long time. Sure, if the Pats pick up an undrafted guy every year, they’re bound to hit on one But chances are it won’t be the first or second or third guy they try and suffering through a bad kicker can ruin your season.
It wasn’t that long ago people thought Quinn Nordin was going to be useful when he was an undrafted guy in camp. He hasn’t exactly worked out well.
I'm not sure what that proves other than UDFA kickers hit or don't hit at rates comparable to drafted kickers, and they move around a lot?
Here are the drafted kickers since 2013:
2013: Caleb Sturgis (drafted in the 5th round, played for 3 teams, out of football by 2019)
Dustin Hopkins: drafted by Buffalo in the 6th round, never kicked for them, became a rookie in 2015, now on his 3rd team
2014: Zach Hocker (drafted by Washington in the 7th, never kicked for them, played in 8 games for 2 other teams and was out of football in a year)
Nate Freese (drafted in the 7th by Detroit, went 3/7 on FGA in 3 games, never kicked again)
2015: Zero kickers drafted
2016: Roberto Aguayo (drafted in the 2nd round, kicked for one season in TB, out of football)
2017: Jake Elliott (drafted in the 5th by Cincy, never kicked for them, now in Philly)
Zane Gonzalez (drafted in the 7th, kicked for 3 teams, out of football after 2021)
Harrison Butker (drafted in the 7th, still kicking for KC)
2018: Daniel Carlson, drafted in the 5th by the Vikings, played 7 games for them, then went to Oakland where he's been since)
Jason Sanders, drafted in the 7th by Miami, still there)
2019: Matt Gay, drafted in the 5th by Tampa Bay, now on his 3rd team since
Austin Seibert: drafted in the 7th, played for 4 teams, not sure if he's still on the Jets roster/PS
2020: Tyler Bass (drafted in the 6th by Buffalo, still there)
Justin Rohrwasser (Nazi, drafted in the 5th by the Pats, never kicked in the NFL)
Sam Sloman (drafted in the 7th, kicked a total of 13 FGA for 2 teams, out of league)
2021: Evan McPherson, still with Cinci after being drafted in the 5th
2022: Cade York, 4th rounder, kicked one season in CLE, now on Giants PS
That's it, that's the whole list. Is the opportunity cost of giving up a 4th, 5th round pick worth the hit rate on these guys vs. bringing in a steady supply of UDFA's and FA's to try to find one? I personally think not, unless you get really lucky. I think Butker and Sanders are the only guys still on the teams that drafted them aside from guys still on their rookie deals, and both of them were 7th round picks, not 5th rounders?