The New England Patriots may be settling their position battle at quarterback, with Cam Newton taking a comfortable lead. The running back and receiver jobs may be fascinating to fantasy football owners. But at kicker, the Patriots seem to have a competition that’s just getting underway. New England signed Nick Folk this week after a shaky training camp from rookie and fifth-round draft pick Justin Rohrwasser.
Folk has been instantly more consistent than Rohrwasser.
“I think both players are good kickers,” Bill Belichick said Wednesday during a . “We’ll see how it goes. That’ll be up to them to decide. … Those two guys will both get as much opportunity as we can give them, and we’ll evaluate them and go from there.”
Tuesday’s session served as a nice example of what’s taking place between the two kickers. Folk’ kicks didn’t blast through the uprights, but he was efficient, hitting all three of his kicks in 11-on-11 team drills. Rohrwasser, meanwhile, hit his kicks with power, but looked erratic when it came to accuracy, hitting just 2 of 3 in the same scenarios as Folk.
Belichick explained he’d stayed in touch with Folk this offseason after he was 14 of 17 in 2020 after Stephen Gostkowksi, who is currently a free agent, suffered a season-ending hip injury.
“We’ve talked to Nick throughout the course of the spring and even training camp, and things worked out here last week,” Belichick said. “It’s great to have him. He certainly came in and did a good job for us last year. But things just didn’t work out until recently with Nick. I’m glad they did. I’m glad he’s here, and we’ll see how it turns out. I don’t know. …
“But we’ve been talking to Nick since back in March, so this isn’t something that just came up a couple days ago. It’s been an ongoing conversation for several months, actually.”
Regardless of how long the Patriots had been in touch with Folks, he’s in camp at a time when Rohrwasser is showing signs of weakness. It’s beginning to look possible that — if the rookie doesn’t recover from his case of the yips — Folk could win the job and bump Rohrwasser to the practice squad, which has expanded to 16 players amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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