Funny Commentator on Nick Flok Kick
Until now.
Folk ended 2017 on injured reserve with Tampa Bay, then kicked briefly in the defunct AAF in 2018. Now, at 35, after a year out of the league, the veteran kicker is back in the tournament, and savoring every step of a journey that officially began in October, but planted its roots back in September. That's when the Patriots were forced to place veteran incumbent Stephen Gostkowski on injured reserve.
After trying out both Folk and Mike Nugent and giving the job to Nugent, they switched gears after four games — Nugent converted five of eight field goals — and signed Folk. He put a budding career in commercial real estate on hold, left his family in his adopted hometown of Dallas, and flew north.
Outside of a brief hiatus following an emergency appendectomy, Folk has brought some stability to a position that can always decide the outcome of a game, but can become even more scrutinized and polarizing in the playoffs. One bad kick can change a franchise's fortune.
Just ask Adam Vinatieri. Or Cody Parkey.
"I think any time you can get in the playoffs, you have to savor it, because you never know what can happen," Folk said this week in the locker room.
He made the Pro Bowl as a Cowboys rookie in 2007, but that top-seeded NFC team lost in the divisional round to the same upstart Giants which upset the undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl. What he's learned across those years is not so much to appreciate the moment, but stay in it as it happens.
"I've been on plenty of pretty good teams that haven't made the playoffs, and I've been on good teams that have been in the playoffs and lost early, really early," he said. "My rookie year we were 13-3, No. 1 seed, and we lost. You just never know. We had a good team, the next year we were expecting to have a good team, and we didn't make the playoffs.
"Then I go to the Jets, we make the playoffs [in 2010], and I'm thinking 'OK, 2011 will be good.' The lockout threw a wrench in everything, but we were expecting to have a pretty good team coming off the AFC Championship game that we lost to Pittsburgh. We lose a couple games we shouldn't lose, and the next thing you know, you're 8-8 and don't make the playoffs.
"You've kind of got to think about just the current moment, focus only on Tennessee right now and don't look forward."
For Folk, there is some fun in looking back, particularly at the version of himself who was still playing football in January, at how much his life has changed across the decade in between.
"I'm married now, I was dating my wife at the time, and we're married, four kids," Folk said. "Twin boys who are 6, a little girl who's 4, and a little boy who's 2. And I had a regular job before this, commercial real estate. I got my MBA the last couple years I was playing before here, I did it online at Indiana University. As soon as I finished, that was the beginning of this season, in August, I took that job. But I had a good arrangement with [my boss] and he was like 'Yeah, I want you to go kick.' So whenever I needed to, I'd go do my workouts, do them early in the morning before the kids went to school."
It paid off for him and for the Patriots, who seem more comfortable with Folk than they did with Nugent or Kai Forbath, who subbed for Folk after his surgery. Coach Bill Belichick elected for his first 50-yard kick of the season Week 16 against Buffalo, a 51-yarder that Folk converted. Folk wasn't aware of that statistic, but in the vein of staying focused on the moment and concerning himself with only the things he can control, that makes perfect sense.
After 10 years away from playing in games like these, he's happy to do whatever is asked.
"One thing I'm really appreciative of being up here is that Bill is very decisive in his decisions," Folk said. "There's no gray area, and so, a lot of times, it has nothing with me being able to make a kick or a kicker being able to make a kick. It's like the time of the game, the flow of the game, and we're going for it or we're punting it. I'm like 'OK, I'm not going to fight for it.' He's made a million of those decisions in his career and he's making that decision for the team. There's no emotion involved. If it's what's best for the team this time, then it's this, bam. He does a great job of that.
"Whenever he calls field goal, I go out and kick a field goal."
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Globe_Tara.
Source: https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/patriots/2020/01/04/patriots-kicker-nick-folk-winding-journey-back-playoffs/olnhtBxzNS0mluTOWyV0cN/story.html
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