Patriots Rookie Kicker Quinn Nordin Won the Preseason by Comparing His Job to Cornhole and NASCAR

Matt Rourke. Shutterstock Images.

It's been a strange few seasons at the all-important kicker spot in New England. Late in his career, the team's all-time points leader Stephen Gostkowski started missing a few field goals and, disturbingly, quite a few extra points in big games. Then in 2019 he got hurt and they went through three replacements until they settled on Nick Folk. So they drafted Justin Rohrwasser out of Marshall in the 5th round, a prospect so obscure he was the first pick in the entire draft the networks had no film on. He never made it out of camp, as the job went to a 36 year old Folk, who earned Big Dick Nick status, with a couple of late game winners and two Special Teams POTY honors. 

And now, it would appear the starting job goes to Quinn Nordin, a UDFA rookie from Michigan who didn't even get a call from the Patriots until four days after the draft. By which time he says he was going on LinkedIn to search "What to do after college." It's a bold move. Because even though he was Scout.com's top rated kicker coming out of high school, his numbers at Ann Arbor were the kind you don't want to emphasize on your LinkedIn profile. 

As a freshman, he became the first Michigan kicker ever to made two field goals of 50+ yards in the same game. But accuracy was never quite his bag. In four years, he converted just 72.4% of his field goals. And only went 2-for-5 last year. And while he was launching artillery shells at the Pats first in-stadium practice a few weeks ago, going 10-for-10 with a few over 50 yards, he sprayed the ball all over the place in the preseason game against the Eagles. Which goes a long way to explaining why Folk has been re-signed to the practice squad. 

Still, for what it's worth, Nordin (pronounced Nor-DEEN), has drilled it right between the uprights every time he's talked. Beginning with that LinkedIn story. Continuing through this little nugget about the day he got the starter's job:

And finishing with this latest gem. Asked if he could compare kicking a football to swinging a golf club, he admitted that he's never golfed in his life. But he did compare it to the sport of kings, Cornhole. And to NASCAR. 

Because of course he did. The similarities are as striking as they are obvious. One is something you do at the patio of a brewery with a DIPA in your off hand. The other involves nerves of steel, the ability to operate a precision engineered piece of complex machinery under incredible pressure, and sort of a death wish. So it's just like kicking a ball. 

You can tell yourself Mac Jones is the big winner of the offseason, just because he rode into town and ripped the QB1 job out of the powerful hands of a 10 year veteran twice his size and with an MVP trophy on his shelf. But like I said, I'm going with this guy. He comes across like a combination between the guy on every season of "Survivor" who wins challenges but then gets voted out the back by the hot, manipulative, schemer girl who flirts with him before stabbing him in the back, and the kid who hangs out in the quad with a guitar who can sell you the best weed on campus. 

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Trust me, I know this fan base. The Mighty Quinn is about a half dozen made field goals, and maybe one converted pressure kick in the 4th quarter, from becoming a huge favorite around here. And if he gets off to a good start, we'll need him to do regular interviews. He's a legend in the making.