Younghoe Koo had one of the best games of his career in the Atlanta Falcons’ 26-24 win over the New Orleans Saints in Week 4.
Fittingly, their Week 10 rematch between the two NFC South foes featured one of his worst outings as a pro.
Koo made just 1-of-4 field goal attempts in the Falcons’ 20-17 loss to the Saints. It marked the first time in his career that he missed three field goals in a single game.
Despite Koo’s struggles on Sunday, Falcons coach Raheem Morris offered the 30-year-old kicker support after the defeat.
‘I’ve got all the confidence in the world [in Koo],’ Morris told reporters during his postgame news conference. ‘He’s one of the best kickers in this game. He’s done it for a long time. He had an off day. It happens a bunch of times. Like, shooters shoot. We went out there and took a shot today and didn’t make it.’
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Koo’s ‘off day’ extends beyond his performance Sunday. He is just 2-of-7 on field goals in his last three games and has missed at least one attempt in each of those contests.
But Koo was particularly bothered by his performance against the Saints, especially since he missed a game-tying, 46-yard kick with 6:43 left in regulation.
‘It’s not the standard that we have, or I have for myself,’ Koo said of his performance after the game, per ESPN. ‘This game is fully on me. I’ll take that and yeah, that’s not OK. I think we were playing well enough to win the football game, especially this one, and I let the team down and I don’t take that lightly. It’s one of the lowest points as a kicker.’
Koo’s stats back that up. His three misses dropped his season-long field goal percentage of 70.8%, his worst since he went 3-of-6 (50%) over four games with the Los Angeles Chargers as a rookie in 2017.
Koo was released after his poor start with the Chargers and didn’t get another chance to kick in an NFL game until 2019. He is drawing upon that experience as he looks to re-establish himself as a trustworthy kicker.
‘It doesn’t really matter what you have done in the past,’ Koo said. ‘The next … kick has to be the [best] one. And I’ve just got to move on.’
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