New England Patriots - NESN.com
Parker Romo set out to avenge his release from the New England Patriots on Sunday, and ended up falling short in devastating fashion.
The 28-year-old kicker put together a strong camp earlier this year with the Patriots, but lost out to Andy Borregales — who New England had used a draft pick just months earlier.
He would secure the Atlanta Falcons’ kicking job in a big way, ultimately supplanting longtime incumbent and another one-time Pats depth kicker, Younghoe Koo, in the process.
But with Atlanta down 24-23 in the fourth after a Drake London touchdown, Romo missed right on the would-be game-tying extra point. Just 4:40 remained in the game at that point, and neither team would score the rest of the way.
“It’s a tough one. Nobody wanted this win more than I did in this locker room,” Romo admitted after the game, via a team-provided transcript. “Obviously, that was the team I played for in the preseason, so I got to keep my head up.
“A lot of teammates still have faith in me and came up to me. I have got to move on to this next week. Can’t let this one kick affect me. Anytime I go out on the field, I need to make the kick, and that’s all it is.”
The kick didn’t miss by much, and Romo didn’t point to anything that immediately felt off about it.
“Yeah, I felt good,” Romo said. “Anytime I push it a little bit to the right, maybe your steps are a little bit just too fast and makes you swing a little bit inside out. So, just got to keep focusing on my fundamentals and get better and put the ball down the middle, so there’s no question if it’s good or no good.”
Though Romo’s time in New England was brief, he did again acknowledge that facing the Patriots added some juice to the matchup for him.
“Yeah,” Romo said. “Just because of the fact that, I did really well for them in training camp and ended up here.”
