Del W. from York, Nebraska
Younghoe Koo badly missed a 44-yard field-goal attempt in the final seconds of Atlanta’s 23-20 loss to Tampa Bay in Sunday’s opener that would have sent the game to overtime. Koo, coming off a career-high nine missed field goals last season, should he still be a starter based on his performance or should we stick with his emotional debt that he owes the coach?
There are some times a coach or player says something that I know in my bones will come up again. When Raheem Morris said Koo has an emotional bank account with him, that was one of those times. Because here we are, talking about it one game in because Koo missed that 44-yarder.
This is difficult, too, because I have a lot of respect for Koo and his story and what he’s meant to this organization. But the truth is that whatever is going on is a problem. When you have a head coach talking about having to change strategy and approach because he cannot trust his kicker with anything beyond 40 yards — that’s not good, and, honestly, not acceptable at this level of football. And it happened Monday. Literally.
“As what happened yesterday, yes. You have to say yes, right? You know, when it goes down that way and you’ve got to make some of those decisions. It’s always going to factor in, particularly when you don’t make them. These are the hard truths in what we do. These are the hard things that happen. You’ve got to be honest with your kicker, and my kicker’s Koo. I had to be honest with him, talk about those things with him, and we had great, honest conversations today. And we’ll continue to be that way, because I do have confidence in him. I have seen him win games for me before. I have seen him tie it. Last night didn’t help, with everything that I’ve said and everything that we’ve been through. But he did have an outstanding offseason, kicking the 90% that we talked about. Then last night, it does not look good. When you bang one off the upright to go in on an extra point and then you missed that one to send us an overtime, it definitely affects you.”
I don’t know what the future of Atlanta’s kicking game looks like, because I am also none-too-confident that Lenny Krieg is the guy, either. We saw Krieg nail a 57-yard field goal in the preseason, but then he missed a 53-yarder in the same game. I don’t know if Krieg’s consistency is even any better than Koo’s. So, where does that leave Atlanta’s kicking game? Well, it leaves Atlanta bringing in other kicking veterans and “up-and-comers,” which is exactly what Morris said is the plan.
When you watch a kicker off the street help the Buffalo Bills to a major win over the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night… When you see kickers casually take a game into halftime with a 59-yarder on Monday Night Football… it puts into perspective how far the Falcons’ kicking game has to go.