Cardinals Kicker Wins NFC Player of Month Award

A well deserved honor for Arizona Cardinals kicker Chad Ryland.

Ryland was just selected as the NFC Special Teams Player of the Month after replacing an injured Matt Prater and knocking home three game-winning field goals in four weeks.

More from the team's official press release:

"Ryland is the first Cardinals 'Player of the Month' selection since 2020 when safety Budda Baker won the defensive award in October. He becomes the first “Special Teams Player of the Month” since kicker Zane Gonzalez was honored in October of 2019.

"Signed to Arizona’s practice squad on October 2, Ryland finished the month of October with three game-winning field goals in four games played with the Cardinals.

"Making his season debut at San Francisco in Week 5 – just three days after signing with Arizona – Ryland made a 35-yard FG with just 1:37 remaining to give Arizona a 24-23 win. In back-to-back wins over the Chargers and Dolphins in Weeks 7-8, Ryland hit game-winning FGs as time expired: a 32-yarder vs. the Chargers on MNF for a 17-15 win and a 34-yarder at Miami for a 28-27 win.

"His first month with the Cardinals ended with him becoming just the 3rd player in NFL history to have three-game winning FGs in the 4th quarter/OT in their first four games with a team: Chris Jacke (1998 - Cardinals) and Stephen Gostkowski (2020 - Titans). He also joined Jacke (Dec. 1998) and Gostkowski (Sept. 2020) as the only players in NFL history to have at least three game-winning FGs in the final two minutes of the 4th quarter/OT in a single calendar month.

"Ryland had walk-off game-winning FGs as time expired in back-to-back games for just the second time in franchise history (final two games of the 1998 season). Last week at Miami, Ryland also connected on one of the longest FGs in franchise history with a career-long 57-yarder.

"Besides Ryland, the Cardinals have had a Player of the Month 13 other times and a Special Teams Player of the Month five other times since the award began. Ryland becomes the third different kicker in team history to win Player of the Month (Neil Rackers, Zane Gonzalez)."

Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon labeled Ryland a "primetime player" after the most recent win in Miami.

"He's a primetime player. He does it in practice, though. We try to rattle him in practice. He's got ice water in his veins right now. To have that type of confidence how we decide the play the last two games, there's other ways you can play that game. We think that's the best thing to do, those last two. Maybe it's not always like that, but these last two, let's end the ball and kick a field goal and get out of here, and that's what we've done."

We'll see what happens when Prater returns from injury, though the Cardinals clearly got a gem in Ryland off the practice squad.