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It's hard to believe from this photo, but Punter/Holder Jake Bailey did NOT slap Kicker Nick Folk's keister here.
After sustaining their longest losing streak since 2002, the New England Patriots were able to get back in the win column Monday night with a 30-27 comeback victory over the very good New York Jets.
While Monday's win will forever be known as the Jakobi Myers game, he didn't score a single point in his birthday-breakout performance.
However, 36 year old kicker/bad-back-haver Nick Folk did score 12 of the Patriots 30 points on MNF by going 3-3 on XP and FGs; highlighted by his 51 yard game winner. #Teamgame.
That performance earned Folk AFC (or NFC) Special Teams Player of the Week Honors for the fifth time of his career according to wikipedia and my 6th grade math skills, 
Legally required to include this even though I haven't listened to it.
At 3-5 with 3 losses against the Seahawks, Broncos and Bills that could've gone either way, the Patriots find themselves on the outside looking at the playoff hunt. According to playoffstatus.com the Patriots currently have an 8% chance at making the playoffs.
There have been plenty of units to complain about when it comes to Patriots football this year, but the kicking game has not been one of them. After going through what felt like a dozen kickers last season, including Nick Folk for 7 games, it looks like the Patriots have found their guy (for at least this year).
With 5th round pick Justin Rohrwasser seeming like another wasted draft pick, Nick Folk has been one of the biggest bright spots for the Pats through half a season. After missing a field goal in week 1 and 2, Folk is 13-13 on FGS and 8/9 on XP (with the miss coming in week 3) since. For the year he's 14/16 on FGs and 14/15 on XP. Former Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski is currently 11/18 (61.1%) kicking field goals in 2020. Before last season Folk's last NFL game was as a Bucanneer week 5 in 2017. In that 19-14 TNF loss to the Patriots, Folk went 0/3 on FG missing from 56, 49 and 31 yards respectively. This man then missed the rest of 2017 and the entire 2018 season due to a lack of interest from NFL teams. Now in 2020 he has earned AFC Special Teamer of the Week honors. It's not exactly Muhammad Ali, Rocky Bleier or Alex Smith when it comes to individual comebacks, but I think it's pretty cool to see someone whose career was basically over, comeback to be back on top for least a week. Congrats to Nick Folk and as a bad back guy myself, make sure you use that heat pad. If the Patriots are going to have any chance against the fraud-adjacent Ravens on SNF this week they're gonna need at another flawless night in the kicking game. P.S. I know he's looked bad at times this year, but Cam is only 3-4 as a starter. If we didn't lose half the defense to Covid and have statistically the worst TE production in NFL history (possibly hyperbole, but it's close) I think we could easily be a playoff team. This year just shows how a few plays can be the difference between 6-10 and 10-6. Regardless what happens going forward, this is one of my favorite plays I've ever seen a Patriots QB make in a non-playoff game.
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