The Patriots Bring in Some Competition for Gostowski

On Monday the Patriots filled their last two spots on the 90-man roster by signing a big wide receiver Mark Harrison out of Rutgers (uncanny) and a kicker David Ruffer out of Notre Dame. PatriotsLife has covered the signing of the wide receiver, but what about this kicker?

David Ruffer originally went to William and Mary, but transferred to Notre Dame in 2008 where he set a record in field goals made. Ruffer drilled his first 23 career field goals at Notre Dame which lead him to taking over the starting kicker role in the 2010 season. Ruffer ended his college career making 93 of his 97 extra points and making 33-for-44 field goals.

This now means the, at times, shaky Stephen Gostowski now has a little competition in camp. It would seem that they are just trying to motivate Gostowski to be better because in a few cases he seemed to have a little bit of shrinkage in the final moments of games. Patriot fans have little patience for kickers because New England fans were used to watching Adam Vinatieri make clutch field goals consistently.

Stephen Gostowski is a career 84% field goal kicker and was pretty much on par last season making 29-for-35 (82.9%). Gostowski seemed to pull it together in the playoffs going 4-for-4, but none of those were over 40 yards. What was a distinct advantage for the Patriots for all those years with Vinatieri is no longer. Gostowski is not a bad kicker, in fact he’s very good. He’s just not amazing like Vinatieri was (especially in the closing seconds of a game) and Patriot fans need to start understanding that Vinatieri was exceptional and not the norm.

This season Gostowski actually was better than Vinatieri who was 78.8%. Gostowski was tenth in the league for field goals made (Ahead of Vinatieri who was sixteenth) and he drilled 2-for-2 field goals of 50+ yards in the regular season. Gostowski struggled with kicks of 40-49 yards making 9-for-13. Remember, he’s not kicking in a dome and New England weather can be unpredictable during an NFL season so his numbers are pretty good in contrast.

I am like everyone else. I want a clutch kicker to win games for us, but the truth is there are probably only two or three teams in the league that can count on that week in and week out so the Patriots are doing what they can to motivate Gostowski to be better. I would be very surprised if Gostowski isn’t kicking for the Patriots for the Patriots in the 2013-14 season.

Josh Brown
@TitleTownTalkSB