More than two years after he became Kentucky’s career scoring leader, Austin MacGinnis still is chasing his NFL dream. He’s played for two teams in two leagues that no longer exist, but if training camps go off as planned starting later this month, the former Prattville High School place-kicker will have his best chance yet at earning a place in the NFL.
“I’ve always felt that I was good enough,” MacGinnis said during an offseason online press conference. “I felt that if I stopped trying to achieve my dream, I would be selling myself short.”
MacGinnis is on the Los Angeles Rams’ offseason roster along with two other kickers, who also have no NFL experience.
At Kentucky from 2014 through 2017, MacGinnis set school career records with 72 field goals and 359 points.
MacGinnis went to the Chicago Bears’ rookie minicamp as a tryout player in 2018. He got another look from the Bears about nine months later as Chicago sorted through a parade of kicking candidates after Cody Parkey’s infamous Double Doink in a playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
MacGinnis also got a look from the Dallas Cowboys in December, but he’s done all of his game kicking since leaving Kentucky for the Memphis Express of the Alliance of American Football and the Dallas Renegades of the XFL. The AAF folded during its inaugural spring season in 2019 for financial reasons. The revived XFL stopped playing halfway through its first spring season in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
For Memphis, MacGinnis made 9-of-11 field-goal attempts. For Dallas, he made all 10 of his field-goal attempts.
“I was lucky enough that, even though I missed playing in the NFL for two years, I still stayed active in two spring leagues,” MacGinnis said. “I’ve been in at least a rookie minicamp and NFL tryouts along the way, so I knew I was inching closer and kept getting better. Every combine I went to, I competed against guys who were in the NFL and had done well against them, so I knew it was a matter of time.”
In eight seasons as the kicker for the St. Louis-turned-Los Angeles Rams, Greg Zuerlein earned the nicknames “Greg the Leg” and “Legatron.” He received All-Pro recognition in 2017 and made 33 field goals of at least 50 yards, including a 61-yarder in 2015.
But after missing eight of his 49 field-goal attempts between 40 and 49 yards in his first seven seasons, Zuerlein missed 6-of-11 in 2019, including going wide right on a 44-yard attempt with 11 seconds left in a 30-29 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Oct. 3.
Los Angeles finished the season at 9-7 -- one game out of the playoffs -- and Zuerlein will be competing to earn the Dallas Cowboys’ kicker job in training camp.
As candidates to replace Zuerlein, the Rams signed MacGinnis and Lirim Hajrullahu and drafted Sam Sloman this offseason.
Hajrullahu spent the previous six seasons kicking and punting in the Canadian Football League. He’s been a CFL East Division all-star twice, made 47-of-55 field-goal attempts for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2019 and provided the winning points with a 32-yard field goal with 53 seconds to play in the Toronto Argonauts’ 27-24 victory over the Calgary Stampeders in the 105th Grey Cup in 2017.
“As much as this is a window for myself to get into the NFL, it’s also a kicking window, I feel, just because some other kickers have been struggling,” Hajrullahu said. “This is a perfect combination for myself to get in. I’ve had professional experience, I’ve played in big games and I believe I can compete with the best of them.”
The Rams acquired Sloman eight picks from the end of the 2020 NFL Draft. At Miami (Ohio), Sloman made 49-of-62 field-goal attempts, including 26-of-30 as a senior.
“I look forward to this next journey, competing against those guys,” MacGinnis said. “Just really focusing on myself, because I know if I’m the best me, then that’s going to be the best for the Rams.”
As he has chased his NFL dream, MacGinnis has put his Kentucky degrees to work as a financial advisor. While he joined the Wildcats from Prattville, MacGinnis played only his senior season for the Lions. Before that, he played at Randolph County High School.
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @AMarkG1.
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