MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The Miami Dolphins released kicker Riley Patterson amid a series of roster moves on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The Dolphins brought back kicker Zane Gonzalez, signing him to the practice squad after the veteran spent part of training camp with the team before being released in August with an injury settlement. Miami also waived cornerback Storm Duck and edge Andre Jones Jr. and signed edge Rodney McGraw off the practice squad.<\/p>\n
Patterson made seven of his nine field-goal attempts this season and was 5 of 6 on extra points. The moves come as the Dolphins try to improve one of the league’s worst special teams units, which allowed an 81-yard return on the opening kickoff against Cincinnati in Week 5.<\/p>\n
Coach Jeff Hafley has pointed to a lack of execution as a reason for some of Miami’s special teams struggles and said the team would evaluate all units during its bye week and explore changes if necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re counting on those veteran players to do their job to the best of their ability,\u201d Hafley said last week, before Miami’s Week 6 bye. \u201cWhether it\u2019s in the punt game, whether it\u2019s making our PATs and our extra points, whether it\u2019s kicking the ball, whether it\u2019s we\u2019re trying to kick a touchback or we\u2019re trying to kick the ball deep left, just like any other position, we\u2019re counting on those veterans to do their job and do them at a high level. That\u2019s what they\u2019re here for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gonzalez is 115 of 142 in his career on field goals and 18 of 28 on attempts of 50 or more yards.<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full NFL coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The Miami Dolphins released kicker Riley Patterson amid a series of roster moves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1032895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2049],"tags":[46036,217,7,8628,216,251,2087,6,27878,27876,83965,34653,133598,7565,6433],"class_list":["post-1032894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami-dolphins","tag-andre-jones-jr","tag-dolphins","tag-football","tag-jeff-hafley","tag-miami","tag-miami-dolphins","tag-miamidolphins","tag-nfl","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40780-ap-florida-sports-only","tag-riley-patterson","tag-rodney-mcgraw","tag-storm-duck","tag-zane-gonzalez"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117474935687979258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1032894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1032895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1032894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1032894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1032894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}