It’s really not necessary to ever draft a kicker in the National Football League.
Look at the Ravens if you need evidence. Before this year, they had never drafted a kicker. Not once in their first 29 years of existence, when they won a couple of Super Bowls, made the postseason 16 times, and employed two of the most prolific kickers in NFL history — Justin Tucker and Matt Stover — for 26 years. A model operation in numerous ways, the Ravens got by just fine without ever spending a draft pick on a kicker.
You can always find a guy.
As of right now, only 11 out of 32 kickers were drafted. Guys with tremendous kicking careers — Matt Prater, Graham Gano, Brandon McManus, Chris Boswell — all entered the league as undrafted rookies.
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Alas, times change, and teams do draft kickers. Ideally, a team might be in a Super Bowl contending type of position before spending draft capital on a kicker who was deemed so reliable and so can’t-miss that there need not be a second thought on the pick.
The Patriots? They are not in Super Bowl contention. And there are plenty of questions about their rookie kicker.
Andy Borregales trotted onto the field Sunday in Miami after Drake Maye and the offense deftly marched down the field and scored on the opening possession. After a rough opening week, spirits had been lifted.
And then Borregales missed his kick, clanking it off the upright.
The Patriots scored again on their second possession. Maye to Kayshon Boutte. Tremendous stuff. The rout was on, right?
Not quite. Borregales missed the PAT again. Wide right. Never had a chance.
In Week 1, Borregales missed his first NFL field goal attempt, a 40-yarder, while later hitting from 35 and 44 and successfully kicking a PAT. That came after he had missed two field goals in preseason but still won the kicking competition with Parker Romo, likely due to the team’s usage of a fifth-round pick to select him.
So the early resume wasn’t sparkling when Mike Vrabel called upon the rookie to kick a 53-yard field goal to give New England a two-possession lead in the final minutes of Sunday’s game in Miami. Yet because sports are sports, Borregales drilled it. Plenty of leg. Ride down the pipe. Perfect kick.
Redemption.
Briefly.
The rookie followed up the best moment of his young career by failing to get the ensuing kickoff into the landing zone, a mistake which gave the football to the Dolphins at their 40-yard line, needing a touchdown to win.
The Patriots’ defense held, though, letting Borregales off the hook for that error.
Put it all together, and it’s not great. Borregales is 4-for-5 on field goals and 2-for-4 on PATs. Three missed kicks in two games, for the mathematically disinclined.
Despite the struggles, head coach Mike Vrabel said his confidence hasn’t wavered.
“I didn’t waver,” Vrabel said.
See? I told you.
“I’m happy for Andy. That’s why he’s here,” Vrabel said. “Thought after the first two, he really settled down. That’s what we’ll have to have.”
Of course, it’s a bit easier for Vrabel to be happy for Andy when the team pulls out a win. But this up-and-down, snip-snap beginning to Borregales’ career is, at the very least, discomforting for anyone who would have preferred a drafted kicker to be a stone-cold machine coming out of college. (Some of us might put added expectations on kickers who were both drafted and smear full-face eye black on game day, but that’s neither here nor there, is it?)
Such is the end of this week’s edition of Kicker Talk. Hope you had fun. Let’s hit on all of the other leftover thoughts from the Patriots’ 33-27 win over the Dolphins in Miami.
–No more “too much on Drake Maye’s plate” talk. Thank goodness. Outside of that annoyance, though, I think we got to see the vision that Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels might share for Drake Maye with the way he played on Sunday. He was free to make plays and take chances, and he was free to run and utilize his athleticism, but he managed to do so while always staying cool and rarely making mistakes. It was a big step forward.
–You could look at Maye’s stat line — 19-for-23, 230 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INT; 31 rush yards, TD — and be wowed. Or you could be a stick in the mud and say Daniel Jones lit them up a week ago, that Miami defense stinks. It’s a matter of perspective … but both can be the right path.
–Likewise, you could look at Marte Mapu’s interception and celebrate the play … or you could ponder what in the world Tua Tagovailoa was looking at.
That was Tua’s second such pick of the game, though his first-quarter gaffe was negated by a Patriots offside penalty. In a related story, Tagovailoa carries a cap hit over $39 million this year, and it rises to $56.4 million next year, and climbs to $65.8 million in 2028. That’s nice.
–Milton Williams made his first “real” sack count, sacking Tagovailoa on fourth down to essentially end the game. I don’t have your fancy PFF grades or anything, but I can tell you this: Milton Williams and Christian Barmore put a ton of stress on that Miami offensive line all day long. It’s certainly a quiet strength for New England. (I said “real” sack, because his first one involved him chasing Tua to the sidelines and shoving him out of bounds just behind the line of scrimmage.)
–We talked about the up-and-down performance of the rookie kicker, but the rookie running back was not any different. TreVeyon Henderson looked like an absolute weapon when he was running a wheel route for a nice gain to convert a third-and-4, and when he was running right through the sternum of Minkah Fitzpatrick, and when he was bulldozing Jack Jones.
Yet Henderson, who was touted as being excellent in pass protection, was legitimately awful in that regard on Sunday. He was flagged for three holding penalties, and he appeared to have been responsible for two sacks — one by Chop Robinson, one by Jordyn Brooks. (One of the holding penalties was declined, because of one of the sacks.) He was a weapon with the ball in his hands (40 yards on five touches) but he’ll need to be much better in pass protection to earn more opportunities.
–I thought Rhamondre Stevenson looked pretty good in Week 1 despite horrific stats. It was a very brave take. But there’s certainly no resistance to such a statement this week, as Stevenson looked sleek out there. Slippery. Elusive. Quick. And flashing those hands?
What is that all about? Who is that guy?
Stevenson had 142 yards from scrimmage, leading the team in rushing yards (54) and receiving yards (88). The next-closest receiver had just 38 yards (Austin Hooper). Certainly one of the two or three best games of his career in terms of impact.
–Vibes may be poor for Mike McDaniel and Co., but that shouldn’t distract from the fact that THE PATRIOTS WON IN MIAMI. Even when the Patriots were historically good, with the best quarterback and coach in NFL history, they couldn’t win in that place. And certainly in the post-Tom Brady era, it’s been brutal. They had lost five straight in Miami, seven of eight, and 10 of 12. That’s two wins in a dozen years, some of which came in brutal fashion.
The point is … no win in Miami should ever be discounted.
–This is not directly related to Patriots-Dolphins, but indulge me this one. This clip of Tom Brady was posted to X on Sunday. It shows Tom Brady explaining his favorite play — “Hoss Y Juke” — that the Patriots simply relied on whenever they needed a gain. They had quick terms for the play — “Jordan” to the right, “Ali” to the left — and they famously ran it multiple times on their game-winning drive of the Super Bowl over the Rams in 2018.
“It was [bleeping] unstoppable,” Brady nonchalantly said. “I had 100,000 yards. I’ll bet you 7,000 of the yards were on this play.”
It’s just funny to remember the hysteria from every corner of the football world worried about the Patriots CHEATING, when in reality they were running the same play over and over again and never getting stopped because the best quarterback of all time was at the helm.
–It is time for the unofficial list of “bad football” that still plagued the Patriots, even in victory. Let’s see:
Two missed PATs
A shotgun snap that was basically a fancy fumble
Twelve enforced penalties for 75 yards (plus two more that were declined)
A defensive offside penalty, negating an early interception
Allowing a 74-yard punt return touchdown
A Morgan Moses false start penalty on fourth-and-2, robbing the Patriots’ of a chance to ice the game on offense
Allowing a six-play, 77-yard touchdown drive in just 83 seconds before halftime
Allowing a 47-yard deep shot on a badly underthrown pass to Tyreek Hill on a third-and-13
Essentially allowing a 44-yard go-ahead touchdown with just over a minute left but getting bailed out by a toe out of bounds
It’s that last one that was really the difference in winning or losing. It’s possible that Drake Maye and the offense could have rumbled down the field into field goal position, and it’s possible that Borregales could have hit a dramatic game-winner as time expires. But really, this looked like the play that sealed the game:
There was plenty to like from the Patriots, but their defense — which gave up too many explosive plays in Week 1, too — has a ton of work to do. (Christian Gonzalez alone won’t be able to solve all those woes, either.)
–Last week, when defending his decision to punt in the fourth quarter, Mike Vrabel not-so-slyly said he would have liked a better punt. I think Bryce Baringer heard him.
Baringer punted twice in the Miami humidity on Sunday, and boy did he let it fly. The first one was 71 yards and was B-R-E-A-T-H-T-A-K-I-N-G. The second went 65 yards, and though that might have helped contribute to the return for a touchdown, those were nevertheless some big boots from the third-year punter who probably does not ever want to get called out by Mike Vrabel again.
–There was something quite funny about Vrabel — outwardly kind of a gruff, intimidating, serious, scary man — celebrating like a child on the Antonio Gibson kick return for a touchdown.
Whether it’s getting knocked on his behind by Will Campbell on a scouting trip, or getting run over by Mack Hollins on the practice field, or diving headfirst into a fight during joint practice, this man — a veteran of 226 NFL games — still craves the rush that only playing football can provide. Perhaps he can find himself a spot on some of those insane 30-and-up football leagues that went viral on social media a couple of weeks ago. The man needs an outlet.