Another long-time Patriot is moving on as New England has released veteran kicker Stephen Gostkowski after 14 seasons with the team, the team announced on Monday.<\/p>\n
Gostkowski is the franchise’s all-time leader in points, the fifth-most accurate kicker in NFL history, and was the longest-tenured Patriots player after Tom Brady\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n
Now the answer to that last bit of trivia is special teams ace Matthew Slater, who was drafted by the Pats in 2008.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old plans to kick next season after his 2019 campaign ended when he had hip surgery to repair a lingering issue.<\/p>\n
The Patriots are making this move for a net savings of roughly $800k against the cap (per @PatsCap), meaning it’s not injury related according to a team source, although that seems odd given that it’s so little savings.<\/p>\n
At the time of the injury, there were rumblings that it was a chronic hip issue that could eventually end Gostkowski’s career. Gostkowski might still be hurt, or the team is just ready to move on.<\/p>\n
The Patriots drafted Gostkowski in the fourth round of the 2006 NFL Draft to replace future Hall of Famer and Pats legend Adam Vinatieri.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/twitter.com\/FTBeard1\/status\/1242174758055071744?s=20<\/p>\n
Even with the pressure of replacing a legend, Gostkowski went on to have a terrific career making his fair share of clutch kicks while bringing tremendous consistency to the position.<\/p>\n
Nick Folk eventually took over for Gostkowski last season, steadying the ship after the Mike Nugent experiment, but New England currently doesn\u2019t have a kicker on the roster.<\/p>\n
Folk is a free agent once again, he was 16-for-19 on field goals and made all 13 of his extra points in eight games in 2019.<\/p>\n
The draft also has a few good options at kicker, including Georgia’s Rodrigo Blankenship and Georgia Southern’s Tyler Bass, if the Patriots are eying a long-term solution.<\/p>\n
Along with quarterback, kicker has been the most stable position on the Patriots roster during the Belichick era, with the team seamlessly transitioning from Vinatieri to Gostkowski.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another long-time Patriot is moving on as New England has released veteran kicker Stephen Gostkowski after 14 seasons with the team, the team announced on Monday. Gostkowski is the franchise’s all-time leader in points, the fifth-most accurate kicker in NFL history, and was the longest-tenured Patriots player after Tom Brady\u2019s departure. Now the answer to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":131993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[210,621],"class_list":["post-50600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-patriots","tag-stephen-gostkowski"],"yoast_head":"\n