FOXBORO – Stephen Gostkowski was not spotted at Wednesday’s practice, adding more context to the fact the Patriots are working out a handful of kickers today.
Gostkowski, who’s missed five of his 23 kicks this season (four extra points and a field goal), was involved in a tackle attempt Sunday against the Bills. After his missed PAT following the first Patriots touchdown, Gostkowski appeared to get juked by returned Andre Roberts. He lay on the field with his head down for a moment.
I ascribed the extended facedown posture to leftover chagrin from the kick. But now, with a string of kickers parading their wares before Bill Belichick and Gostkowski missing from a part of practice he’s usually present for, the likelihood is that he’s dinged.
ESPN’s Mike Reiss first reported the kickers coming through.
Belichick’s press conference seemed an opportune time to get the coach’s insight on what led to him bring in kickers for a workout.
“Yeah, I don't think we worked anybody out yet,” he told me.
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I was a little flatfooted. Reiss doesn’t get stuff wrong but you never know if the team decided it didn’t want to go through with workouts and called them off.
A followup came: “So you’re saying you do not work out kickers today?”
“No, the question was have we worked them out, and I said I don't think we've worked any out; no.”
Another follow about why the team would work out kickers later in the day as the semantic polka continued.
“Yeah, look, I'm not confirming anything, denying anything,” Belichick answered. “We haven't worked any kickers out, so that's the answer to that question.”
Belichick was then asked if he felt Gostkowski might need some competition.
“I don't really think any of that's related to competition; no,” he answered.
What, one wonders, is “that”? Unconfirmed and undenied unemployed kickers coming to Foxboro for auditions? The struggles Gostkowski’s been plagued by?
I didn’t figure he was going to allow himself to be pinned down on that so I let it pass.
As for the field goal UNIT?
“I think as a team, there's a lot of things that we can do better, so we're working every area to improve,” said Belichick. “I think we can improve in all three phases of the game and within those phases there's a lot of things we can work on there as well. We need work on everything. It's barely October. We've got a long way to go.”
UPDATE 2:52 p.m. ET: Gostkowski has reportedly been placed on Injured Reserve by the Patriots. So, that answers that question.
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