Joseph Person reports that the Carolina Panthers released K Joey Slye on Saturday in favor of K Ryan Santoso.
Slye, 25, signed with the Giants after going undrafted out of Virginia Tech following the 2019 NFL Draft. He was waived in May before being brought back in July and waived again.
Slye caught on with the Panthers as a camp leg but ended up taking the starting job after K Graham Gano landed on injured reserve. He re-signed with the team and then signed a one-year extension in January 2021 that would have made him a free agent in 2022.
In 2020, Slye appeared in all 16 games for the Panthers and converted 29 of 36 field-goal attempts (80.6 percent) to go along with 33 of 36 extra-point tries (91.7 percent).
Santoso, 25, wound up going undrafted out of Minnesota in 2018. He later agreed to a three-year, $1.71 million contract with the Lions, but was waived coming out of the preseason.
The Lions brought Santoso back on a futures contract for 2019 before waiving him at the start of the season. The Titans signed him to a contract before releasing him near the end of the season. He caught on with the Giants practice squad in 2020 and bounced on and off for the season.
Santoso was recently traded by the Giants to the Panthers in exchange for a conditional seventh-round pick.
In 2019, Santoso appeared in three games for the Titans. He has not attempted a kick in an NFL regular-season game.
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