Bill Belichick Addresses Mike Nugent Signing, Situation With Gostkowski

The New England Patriots got a new kicker. The team signed Mike Nugent as the fourth kicker in the Bill Belichick era. He will appear in the game against the Washington Redskins.

The head coach talked about the new kicker and used the opportunity to praise Stephen Gostkowski.

“Through the years, I have been lucky,” Belichick said in his Friday news conference. “We have had a lot of stability, there’s no doubt about that. But, look, sometimes things happen, and you have to make changes, just like any other position, and you do the best you can. Steve Gostkowski’s one of the greatest kickers of all time. He’s been great for this franchise. Unfortunately, he’s not available, so we’ll move on.

“Mike’s done a good job. He has a lot of experience. I have a lot of confidence in Mike, or we wouldn’t have signed him. Is he different than Steve? Yeah. We’ll see how it goes. … I think Mike will do a good job, but we all have to prove it every week. That’s the way it is for all of us.”

Nugent is a second-round draft pick in the 2005 NFL Draft. He played with eight different teams prior to his contract with the Patriots.

“A lot on the workout,” Belichick said of Nugent. “We’re just seeing where the player is currently. But the past has some relevance, too. It’s a combination. But it would be hard to sign somebody in that position that didn’t kick well in a workout. There would have to be a lot of other things in place that would override that, I would think.”

The Pats signed former Los Angeles Chargers kicker Younghoe Koo to the practice squad.

“He’s a player we wanted to look at that’s practice squad eligible,” Belichick said of the 25-year-old. “There’s a lot of players we want to look at, but they’re not eligible for the practice squad. You have to put them on the roster if you want to see them. So this gives us a chance to see (Koo) in a practice squad situation. We’ll see how it goes. He doesn’t have a lot of experience.”


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