We hit on this Monday night during Quick Slants but it absolutely bears repeating.
To gain an appreciation of how the Patriots’ placekicking situation has been, just look at fourth-quarter field goals in the regular season since Bill Belichick got to Foxboro in 2000. The Patriots have missed seven fourth-quarter kicks. The rest of the league has combined to miss 620.
Adam Vinatieri was brilliant during the first portion of the Belichick regime from 2000 to 2005 going 32 for 36 in the fourth quarter and overtime. Gostkowski has been otherworldly – 38 of 40 in the last 51 regular season games and 77 for 80 overall. Shayne Graham – remember him? – went 4 for 4 in fourth quarters in 2010.
How much of an advantage is it for the Patriots when their kicker is, as Devin McCourty said Monday on Quick Slants, “one of our best players”? A big one.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” said Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels when apprised of the Patriots’ fourth-quarter kicking stats. “Steve’s been tremendous and Adam before him was equally as accurate and made a ton of clutch kicks. I’ve always felt good about, if we had to put it in their hands … to win the game, we know what we need to do offensively to turn it over to him and then we trust him to go out and make it. He’s done that numerous times.”
I asked McDaniels how much the kicker weighs each week on offensive decisions made.
“That’s a topic that comes up each week,” he explained. “It’s a discussion point for us. On a week-to-week basis, you’re dealing with wind, you’re dealing with potential rain or precipitation. You’re dealing with the conditions of the field. Is it grass, is it torn up? The conversation for us before the game is generally the range depending on the direction we’re going that we’d to get the ball into if we’re in a situation where we need the field goal. Or, if you’re in a long yardage situation where it’s third-and-12 and the ball’s at the 45-yard line, you need to have an idea, ‘OK, if I don’t pick this up but I get 7 of it, are we getting it close enough where Steve can go ahead and attempt a kick he can make?’ ”
Beyond having Vinatieri, Gostkowski and Graham on his side, when McDaniels was head coach in Denver, his kicker was Matt Prater – a very solid player at the time.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be on teams that have had kickers that were obviously very accurate. We depended on them a lot and we trusted them incredibly. We always try to avoid putting them in that situation (where they are at the end of their range) but you have to know where’s the cutoff point each week and it changes from one pregame to the next depending on where you’re playing.”
In considering the care and feeding of a kicker, a staff also has to consider temperament. It took a long time for Patriots fans to feel fully confident with Gostkowski from long range and the game on the line, despite the fact his numbers have been so good.
In Super Bowl 42, the Patriots’ only possession of the third quarter against the Giants ended with New England (leading 7-3 at the time), trying to pick up a first down on a fourth-and-13 from the Giants’ 31. The Patriots passed up the field goal try from 48 and a battle of field position ensued that New York eventually got the upper hand in, scoring early in the fourth to make it 14-10. It remains a curious decision to this day and it will be interesting to find out (which I’ll try to do), if the youth of Gostkowski entered into the decision to not have him kick.
Gostkowski also had an early-season miss at Gillette against Arizona in 2012, a game in which the Patriots were upset 20-18. That left a little scar on the region’s brain for a bit but it’s all but vanished now.
Since 2000, the general rule has been that, whoever the Patriots have is the guy that you want to see kicking with the game on the line.