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History hasn’t favored the Patriots when it comes to drafting kickers; can Andres Borregales become an exception?
Borregales is the third kicker drafted by New England since 2020.
The Patriots aimed to solve their kicking problem in the 2025 draft when they selected Andres Borregales in the fifth round. New England was the first team to draft a kicker, and Borregales’s power and consistency made him the consensus top kicking prospect.
History hasn’t favored the Patriots when it comes to drafting kickers — especially in recent memory. Here’s a deeper look at New England’s struggles to nail a kicker in the draft:
Patriots have drafted three kickers in five years.
There are only two teams in the NFL that have drafted more than one kicker since 2020. The Los Angeles Rams, who snagged Sam Sloman in 2020 and dipped back into the kicker pool in 2024 with Joshua Karty.
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New England though, has drafted three kickers in that span: Borregales this season, Chad Ryland in 2023, and Justin Rohrwasser in 2020.
Much like Borregales, Rohrwasser was the first kicker off the board in his draft class. He didn’t make it out of training camp in 2020 though, and has never appeared in an NFL game. The most notable aspect of his tenure with the Patriots was the spotlight of a tattoo connected to right-wing militia group “The Three Percenters.”
Ryland at least attempted a kick for New England, but he only made 64 percent of his 25 field goal attempts in 2023. Ryland lost a training camp battle with Joey Slye ahead of the 2024 season and was signed by the Arizona Cardinals.
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Since Stephen Gostowski’s departure in 2019, the Patriots have seen a lack of stability when it comes to kicking, and the draft day struggles are a big part of that.
New England’s best kicker wasn’t even drafted.
Even going beyond recent history, the Patriots have never been particularly adept at drafting kickers. And by far the best kicker that graced their roster came in as an undrafted free agent.
Adam Vinatieri never heard his name called in the draft, but he did become one of the most clutch kickers of all time, and helped New England win three Super Bowls.
Although its arguably more impressive that the Patriots scored Vinatieri as a UDFA, it doesn’t help their abysmal draft history at the position.
Stephen Gostowski is the Patriots’ lone longterm kicker drafted.
New England had a fairly seamless transition from Vinatieri to Gostowski, which meant the entire dynasty era Patriots had a strong kicker in place. However, outside of those two, there have been some dark years in Foxborough when it comes to place kickers.
New England has drafted a total of 12 kickers since 1981, per Pro Football Reference. Gostowski is the only kicker among them to appear in more than 30 games for the team.
A particularly rough stretch in the ’80s.
Remarkably, taking three kickers in five seasons is not the worst stretch of luck New England has had drafting at the position.
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The Patriots selected seven different kickers in the 1980s, including a stretch of four years in a row from 1981-84 and another three in a row from 1986-88.
Granted the 1980s featured a much longer draft (12 rounds), it’s still almost impressive for New England to miss on seven different kicking prospects in one decade.
After such a lack of success over decades of drafting, Mike Vrabel and co. look to break that trend with Borregales in 2025.
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