He was, according to his unsparing head coach, one of the best ever to play his position, and for more than a decade, game after game, season after season, the New England Patriots relied on him to — in their vernacular — do his job, and he did, about as well as anyone in N.F.L. history. In a morass of volatility, he was a paragon of consistency, and the Patriots, whether they realize it or not, will probably miss him now that he is gone.
They will also miss Tom Brady.
Aside from identifying its next quarterback, New England must unearth a new kicker after its Monday release of Stephen Gostkowski, who after 14 seasons leaves with three Super Bowl rings and the franchise’s scoring record. After Brady’s announcement that he would play elsewhere next season — he eventually signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Gostkowski lasted about a week as New England’s longest-tenured player.
The decision to cut him was not wholly unexpected. Gostkowski, 36, missed most of last season because of a hip injury, and in a turbulent off-season in which the Patriots’ calculating coach, Bill Belichick, has allowed Brady plus the linebackers Kyle Van Noy and Jamie Collins, among others, to exit in free agency, loyalty pales next to opportunity costs.
But it is a seismic loss, nonetheless, around New England, considering the Patriots’ remarkable stability at perhaps the most capricious position in the league. Extra points were flubbed, field-goal attempts shanked and jobs lost, but not in New England, where for most of the past 25 years the Patriots have employed just two kickers: Adam Vinatieri, who won three Super Bowls from 1996 to 2005 and, at 47, still plays for Indianapolis, and Gostkowski, who handled replacing a legend of a predecessor with aplomb.
After determining (incorrectly, as it turned out) that Vinatieri’s production was likely to decline, the Patriots did not pursue him in free agency and instead spent a fourth-round pick in 2006 on Gostkowski, who ranks 12th in professional football history with 1,775 career points and 15th with 374 field goals. In spite of his success, Gostkowski leaves a complicated legacy in New England. He never attained the mythical status of Vinatieri, who boomed kick after clutch playoff kick for the Patriots, including two Super Bowl-winning field goals.
Through no fault of his own, a moment like that never quite materialized in New England for Gostkowski, who has appeared in more playoff games (28) than any N.F.L. player except Brady (41), Vinatieri (32) and Jerry Rice (29).
Gostkowski missed a few critical postseason kicks — notably an extra-point attempt in the A.F.C. title game loss in Denver in January 2016, his first such miss since his rookie season, and a field goal and an extra point in the Patriots’ Super Bowl loss to Philadelphia in February 2018.
But Gostkowski converted playoff field goals for New England at a higher rate than Vinatieri (88.6 to 76.5) and made a greater percentage of his regular-season field goals, too (87.4 — fifth-best in N.F.L. history — to 81.9). His final playoff field goal with New England was a memorable one: a 41-yarder, with 72 seconds remaining, that secured the Patriots’ sixth Super Bowl victory, a 13-3 win against the Los Angeles Rams in February 2019.
Hampered by a balky left hip, Gostkowski played only four games last season, making 11 of 15 extra points and seven of eight field goals, before landing on injured reserve. In his absence, the Patriots cycled through three kickers — Nick Folk, Kai Forbath and Mike Nugent.
Or, counting Shayne Graham, who kicked in nine games with Gostkowski injured in 2010, as many as they used across the previous 18 seasons combined.
The Patriots have options to replace Gostkowski, including the free agents Greg Zuerlein and Ryan Succop, and they can mine the college ranks, too, for a low-cost alternative. But whether any of them can become as reliable as Gostkowski was for so long — that might be as unlikely as finding another Tom Brady.
Source: Football - nytimes.com
