The Lions should sign this kicker that's already competed with Jake Bates and won

The Detroit Lion s lost Michael Badgley to a season ending injury on Thursday and now they will be in the market for a new kicker to compete with UFL phenom Jake Bates. We have one kicker they need to be interested in and Jake Bates has already been a competitor with him and kind of lost that competition.

We're talking about St. Louis Battlehawks' kicker Andre Szymt. While Jake Bates showed that he had a big leg in the spring and he helped put the UFL on the map a bit there for a minute, he struggled with accuracy down the stretch. He missed seven kicks in 11 games. Not all of them were long distance either. He had some misses from the high 30's too.

Szmyt on the other hand was the most accurate kicker in the entire league last spring. He finished the season going 20-22 in field goals this year. The two that he missed were longer. He missed one in the 40-49 region and one in the 50 plus region.

Szmyt has a leg too. While he didn't hit the big 64-yarder that Bates was able to hit, Szmyt did hit a 61-yarder last season.

He didn't boom it through there like Bates, but he made it and proved that he has some killer accuracy.

The other thing is that Szymt has a lot more experience than Bates. This past spring was the first time that Bates had kicked field goals since high school. He was kick off specialist only in college and part of the time he wasn't even a football player. He was on the soccer team.

Szmyt is an award winning kicker that's been kicking for years. That award he won, by the way, was the Groza Award. That's given out to the best college kicker in the country every year.

Szmyt does have a little NFL experience. He was with the Bears last summer for a short period of time. Now he's a free agent for some reason. This is just more proof that NFL teams are really bad at finding kickers.

The Lions should be the team that's not bad at it and bring him in to compete with Bates this summer. He might even win the job. Worst case scenario is that he pushes Bates to become better.

Update: A source has told A to Z Sports that Szmyt has worked out for the Lions.

Related: Lions have worked out top UFL kicker Andre Szmyt after loss of Michael Badgley