Taking a look at a Jets kicker prospect
The New York Jets recently signed former Missouri and UFL placekicker Harrison Mevis. Let’s therefore look at Mevis in more detail.
The 23-year old Mevis is listed at 5’11” and 243 pounds and was undrafted out of Missouri last April. After failing to make the Carolina Panthers roster last season, Mevis had an outstanding season in the UFL this spring to earn a contract offer from the Jets.
Background
Mevis, who was also a soccer goalie in high school, was rated as a two-star high school prospect and headed to Missouri in 2020 where he made an instant impact in his freshman year. He made 17 of 20 field goals and all 28 of his extra points.
In 2021, Mevis was an all-American and all-SEC first team selection as he led the nation with 23 made field goals on 25 attempts and made all 41 of his extra point attempts.
2022 was his worst season in terms of success percentage, as he missed six of his 61 kicks, all of them field goals. However, he was slightly better in 2023 as he was named as an all-SEC second teamer after making 24 of 30 field goals and 45 of 46 extra points.
Having not been picked up as an undrafted free agent after the 2024 draft, Mevis attended the Panthers rookie camp on a tryout basis and earned a contract. However, he was released in preseason after only attempting one kick – a successful 41-yarder.
Having opted to kick in the UFL, Mevis had an outstanding season with the Birmingham Stallions in 2025 as he made 20 of 21 field goals during the regular season, with his only miss being on a long kick. In the postseason, he made one of his two attempts, both of which were from 56 yards.
Mevis signed with the Jets during the offseason program after the Jets brought him in for a tryout and were impressed enough that they decided to release Greg Zuerlein and sign Mevis.
Now let’s break Mevis down in a variety of categories, based on in-depth research and film study.
Measurables/Athleticism
Mevis is notorious as “The Thiccer Kicker”, a nickname he picked up while at Missouri and opted to embrace. Despite his bigger size, Mevis doesn’t consider himself to be fat or overweight.
Leg Strength
Mevis has impressive leg strength on field goals, and his success rate from beyond 50 yards has been excellent with 13 of 18 made in college and six of eight in the UFL.
His most impressive long-distance kick in college was this 61-yard game winner as time expired.
However, there were a lot of other kicks from beyond 50 that were arguably just as impressive because they were good by some distance.
His big leg doesn’t show up quite as much on kickoffs, where he had only had one attempt in his first three seasons. In 2023, he only had a touchback on 48 of 79 kickoff attempts and gave up over 400 return yards.
Having said that, scouting reports indicate that he allowed multiple long returns on short kickoffs but this doesn’t appear to be true. The longest kickoff return he allowed in college was a 36-yarder fielded at the four-yard line.
Accuracy
For his career as a whole, Mevis has good accuracy numbers, especially if you take into account the UFL season. However, he made just 83.9 percent of his kicks from beyond 40 yards in his last two years in college as he missed two field goals in the same game on three occasions. Ideally, NFL teams would be expecting this number to be at least 90 percent.
He tends to hit the ball with a low trajectory and it often knuckles through the air, potentially making it susceptible to strong winds. He also had one kick blocked in 2023.
He missed just one extra point in his entire career.
Directional kicking on kickoffs has also been a challenge. On this kickoff in the UFL, he tried to bounce the ball inside the landing zone and failed, leading to a penalty.
Clutch
Mevis has been tested in the clutch multiple times during his career. In a 2022 rivalry game against Auburn, he missed a chip shot as time expired to send the game to overtime, where Missouri were defeated.
However, he was also successful on three game-winners at Missouri, including the 61-yarder mentioned earlier. He also made this clutch long-distance kick as time expired to send another game to overtime.
He did not really get to attempt any clutch kicks in the UFL.
Tackling
With Mevis’ bigger size and the fact that a decent percentage of his kickoffs have been returned, it’s worth wondering whether he could be a liability on coverage units due to a lack of mobility, although at least he’s less likely to get run over in the open field.
He didn’t have any tackles during his college career but, of course, he was only kicking off in his senior season.
Encouragingly, he did have a special teams tackle during the UFL season and then added another in the playoffs. The first of these saw the return man essentially running right into him as he broke down in space.
However, on the other one he at least had to hustle across to the sideline to prevent a longer return.
Intangibles/Miscellaneous
Mevis hasn’t been involved in any fakes during his career and doesn’t have any experience as a punter.
His older brother, Andrew, was also a kicker but failed to make it onto the Packers’ roster a few years ago.
Mevis was a teammate of current Jets Brady Cook and Armand Membou while he was at Missouri.
Conclusions
Mevis’ record as a field goal kicker is good, and his body of work within the role is better than the Jets’ other option to win the placekicker role, the undrafted rookie Caden Davis. However, Mevis’ record on kickoffs and the potential for him to be a liability in coverage could be a concern. Neither of the Jets’ punter options have much experience kicking off but, ironically, Davis is especially strong in this area.
In an ideal world, the optimum outcome might be for the Jets to carry Mevis for placekicking and Davis as a kickoff specialist but in the modern NFL with a 53-man roster limit and active roster spots at a premium on gameday this seems unlikely.
You would expect whoever wins the job to come down to who fares better on field goals in camp and preseason but Mevis can boost his chances of securing the role by being more consistent overall, especially on kickoffs.