Getting a handle on his boots

FOXBORO - The NFL's new rule on kickoffs plays right into the hands - or more accurately, the right foot - of Patriots' kicker Stephen Gostkowski.

Now, all the veteran kicker needs to do is actually start to kick them.

In two preseason games, Gostkowski has yet to attempt a kickoff. It's all part of his continuing rehabilitation from a thigh injury, suffered prior to the Patriots' game at Cleveland midway through last season, that landed him on the injured reserve list.

Kickoffs have been handled thus far this preseason by rookie Chris Koepplin of UMass-Amherst. But when Gostkowski, a sixth-year veteran out of Memphis returns to those chores, he may find it's just too darned easy.

Kickoffs are now from the 35-yard-line, five yards closer to the opposing end zone. The NFL moved them up this year in an attempt to promote player safety by increasing the number of touchbacks and reducing the number or returns teams will attempt.
Some believe just from two weeks of preseason play that the league has taken one of the most exciting plays in the game and replaced it with the most boring play on the books.

"The rules are the rules and you've got to play them," said Gostkowski, who had 80 touchbacks (from the 30-yard-line) out of 421 career regular-season kickoffs entering this season. "It's definitely going to be an adjustment period, especially early in the year where you could have five or six kickoffs that are touchbacks in a row, then you don't hit one as well and it's not a touchback and all of a sudden they've got to cover, after the teams have been running down four or five times and not getting any action."

As Gostkowski said, not every kickoff is going to sail out of the end zone because of the new rule. Wind and weather conditions will play a role, especially later in the season. There will also be situations when a touchback, with the ball automatically brought out to the 20-yard-line to start a possession, won't be the proper strategy for the moment.

"We haven't really talked about it too much," Gostkowski said last week after practice at Gillette Stadium, where its characteristic gusty winds have helped keep the ball in play regardless of how well it was struck. "Whatever the coach wants to do if the coach wants me to kick it high and to the goal line, I'll do that. Whatever makes the team better. But if they want me to blast it, and get a touchback, I'll try to do that, too."

Limiting a team's return capability has made Gostkowski even more valuable over the years, above and beyond his accurate placement kicking. It appears that he's back to 100 percent in that area, having converted all three of his attempted field goals (all longer than 40 yards) and all nine of his conversion kicks in two preseason games.

It's not known yet if he will attempt kickoffs Saturday at Ford Field when the Patriots take on the Detroit Lions (8 p.m.; Ch. 4, 12) in what's generally regarded as the dress rehearsal for the regular season. But Gostkowski believes he's ready to accept that challenge. It will just be a matter of returning to what he already did well, regardless of where the ball is placed, and following the proper routine.
"It's kind of a really rhythmical thing, like a golf swing," he said. "When you try to adjust and make adjustments, you're more prone to missing it. So I try to do the same thing every time. I make slight adjustments whether it's into the wind or something like that."

He probably could kick the ball out of the end zone on almost every try from the 35, given his proven capabilities. But Bill Belichick may want him to improve his situational kicking.

"I would work on it and I'm sure I could figure out a way to get it done," Gostkowski said. "If they want me to see how far I can kick it, I'll do that, too."

It's not the easiest thing in the world for a kicker to put a kickoff exactly where he wants it, distance-wise. But Gostkowski thinks a key to being able to do that on a relatively consistent basis is in how he usually kicks a football.

"I always try to hit it as high as I can," he said. "That's never an issue. I feel like I do a pretty good job of hang time. I'd put myself up there for hang time; that's one of the things that I pride myself on."

Past experimentation that went awry taught the veteran kicker a valuable lesson.

"After kicking the ball out of bounds a couple of times and Bill yelling at me, I just try to kick it as high as I can now," he said. "But it helped me out in the long run. Most of the time, the smoother I am the better I hit the ball, and the farther it goes.

"The specialty kicks, those are things we work on, and whatever happens, happens," he added. "If they want me to do it, I'll do it, and if not, then no complaints out of me. My job is to kick the ball and that's all I'm going to do."