ESPN's Adam Schefter reports that the two sides have reached terms on a two-year contract.
Who could have known when the Patriots made Stephen Gostkowski the 118th pick in the 2006 NFL Draft that the place-kicker who’d made the University of Memphis as a walk-on would come to New England and plant his feet firmly in the ground?
Gostkowski will be back for a 14th season in New England, the 35-year-old reaching terms on a two-year deal according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
No footnote in Patriots history he, Gostkowski passed his predecessor, Adam Vinatieri, to become the franchise’s all-time leading scorer in 2014. Now at 1,743 points and counting, he is 12th all-time in the league in that department, a list Vinatieri tops with 2,600 points over a 23-year career with New England and Indianapolis.
With 205 points, Gostkowski ranks second all-time in the league in postseason points, trailing only Vinatieri, who has 238.
While he may lack the clutch kicks on his resume that Vinatieri had during his 10 years with the Patriots (1996-2005), Gostkowski does have the distinction of being the most accurate place-kicker in franchise history, converting 87.4 percent (367 of 420) of his field-goal attempts during the regular season to rank third all-time among kickers with a minimum of 50 attempts behind Justin Tucker (90.1 percent with Baltimore) and Robbie Gould (87.7 percent with Chicago, the New York Giants and San Francisco).
Converting 478 consecutive extra points in the regular season from 2006-2016, Gostkowski holds the league record in that department.
Accuracy has been a major issue with Gostkowski in some of the team’s biggest games of late, however, as he’s missed four kicks in the Patriots’ last three Super Bowl games, going 6 for 8 on field goals and 4 for 6 on point-after conversions. He also missed a PAT in the team’s 20-18 loss in the 2015 AFC Championship game at Denver, forcing the Pats to go for a 2-point conversion with 12 seconds to play that failed, deciding the game.
Gostkowski’s ability to place the ball on kickoffs has also played an integral role at times in the field position game the Patriots like to play.
Attending the University of Memphis on an athletic scholarship to pitch for the Tigers’ baseball team, Gostkowski made the football team as a walk-on and went on to develop into a fourth-round draft pick, finishing his career as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 369 points.
Gostkowski’s franchise records with the Patriots include the three highest-scoring seasons in team history, topped by his 158 points in 2013, one of five times he’s led the league in scoring. His 62-yard field goal in a 33-8 win over Oakland at Mexico City on Nov. 19, 2017, is the longest in team history. He also holds the franchise mark for consecutive games scoring, 142 straight from 2006-2016, the streak ending when the Patriots were shut out, 16-0, by Buffalo in Foxboro on Oct. 2, 2016.
Gostkowski’s appearance in the Patriots’ 13-3 win over the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII was his sixth Super Bowl, tying him with Mike Lodish (four with the Bills and two with Denver) for the second most in league history behind only teammate Tom Brady’s nine. While he missed a 46-yard field goal in that game, he rebounded to convert a 42-yarder in the second quarter and from 41 yards to put the game away with 1:12 to play.