Washington Football Team reportedly working on re-signing Dustin Hopkins

One of the Washington Football Team’s more underrated impending vacancies rests at kicker.

The special teams positions are far from the most glorious when it comes to football, and their salaries reflect the relatively minimal impact they have on each game. Still, having stability at kicker and punter is important, and production at those positions can pay dividends. All you have to do is ask around D.C. how crucial Tress Way has been for the Washington Football Team at times. There’s a clear dip in value, but it’s still deserving of attention.

That fact is reinforced in the modern NFL, where teams seem to be experiencing higher turnover rates at the kicker position. Kickers who are consistent from game to game seem to be in shorter supply, and that makes keeping one in-house a higher priority.

Dustin Hopkins, while not perfect, is one of the better kickers in the league. Since joining the Washington Football Team back in 2015, he’s made 151 of 180 total field goal attempts, for a healthy conversion percentage of 83.9%. He’s also converted over 50% of his 50-plus yard attempts over that span.

2020 was a bit of a down year for Hopkins, who fell below 80% for the first time in his career (79.4%). However, after starting the year 8 for 12, he made 19 of his final 22 attempts. And in his final six games, he was 13 for 14.

Hopkins experienced a slump midway through the year, but Ron Rivera maintained his confidence in the kicker, and Hopkins rewarded his team with better play down the stretch. Now, it appears as though the Washington Football Team intends to compensate him for that success. According to NFL reporter Dov Kleiman, who corroborated ESPN’s John Keim, Washington is “working on” re-signing Hopkins.

After franchise tagging Brandon Scherff, the Washington Football Team sits at around $36 million in available cap space. Luckily, were they to re-sign Hopkins, he wouldn’t cut into that very much. The highest kicker contract in the NFL currently belongs to Justin Tucker, who earns $5 million annually.

Projecting a deal for Hopkins, it’s likely that his new contract demands only a slight increase from his previous annual value of $2.525 million. Either way, Washington should be able to re-sign Hopkins while staying comfortably above the $30 million mark, reserving the space to make larger moves in free agency next week.