Browns kicker Cade York traded to Commanders for conditional draft pick

The Cleveland Browns have reportedly traded kicker Cade York to the Washington Commanders in exchange for a conditional seventh round pick. Albert Breer reported it first.

This move comes as the Commanders have struggled to find consistency in the kicking game ahead of the season. So, there is hope York can provide stability and competition at that spot.

Along with Cade York, Washington has Riley Patterson on the roster at the kicker position. Another young kicker with four years of experience to this point, he’s struggled in the 2024 preseason, only making 40 percent of his field goal attempts to this point.

The timing of this is also interesting with a roster cutdown looming in the NFL. That’s something that does have a tendency to cause the trade market to heat up.

Cade York is entering his third NFL season and will now also be with his fourth different NFL team. He was initially a fourth round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft out of LSU by the Browns before spending time with the Tennessee Titans and New York Giants in 2023. He returned to Cleveland for 2024 before this trade sent him to Washington.

In 2022, York played 17 games for the Browns. In total, he made 24 out of 32 field goals that season and 35 out of 37 extra points. On top of that, he had a 61.7 percent touchback rate on kickoffs, though that was under the old format for kicking the ball off.

York spent his time with Tennessee on the practice squad before the Giants signed him off the practice squad. However, a quad injury landed him on injured reserve.

During his time in college at LSU, Cade York was a star for the Tigers. While there, he was a national champion who went on to be a First-Team All-SEC selection in the 2020 season. Now, he’s going to be paired up with another former LSU star in quarterback Jayden Daniels.

The second overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, Washington recently announced that Daniels is going to be the starter for Week 1 of the 2024 season.

“He naturally has a good feel of where to position the ball, whether it’s an in-breaking route, out-breaking route, a ball down the field,” wide receiver Terry McLaurin said of Daniels. “A lot of the things, he just naturally has the ability to have a feel for the game, which is very unique for any quarterback, but let alone a rookie.”