Stephen Gostkowski

Stephen Gostkowski

Stephen Carroll Gostkowski is an American football placekicker for the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League. He was drafted by the New England Patriots in the fourth round of the 2006 NFL Draft. He has won three Super Bowls with the Patriots and played in six. In 2014, he became the Patriots’ all-time leading scorer, surpassing Adam Vinatieri.

About Stephen Gostkowski in brief

Summary Stephen GostkowskiStephen Carroll Gostkowski (born January 28, 1984) is an American football placekicker for the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League. He was drafted by the New England Patriots in the fourth round of the 2006 NFL Draft. He has won three Super Bowls with the Patriots and played in six. He is the all-time leader in field goals in Patriots history and is the seventh-most accurate kicker in NFL history. He also holds the NFL record for consecutive extra points with 479. Gostowski graduated from Madison Central High School in Madison, Mississippi, in 2002. He attended the University of Memphis, where he played football and baseball for the Memphis Tigers football team and majored in exercise and sports science. He finished his college career with a total of 369 points, a school record, and 13th overall in NCAA Division I-A history, converting 70 of 92 field goals and 159 of 165 extra points. He earned first team All-Conference USA honors in both his junior and senior years and was named Conference USA’s Special Teams Player of the Year in 2005. In a 2005 game against Houston, he managed the rare feat of recovering his own onside kick. He lost two front teeth playing hockey and had fake teeth that were too large put in as replacements. While at Memphis, he was dubbed “Gotti” by Tigers head coach Tommy West, because West could not pronounce Gostkowksi’s name correctly. He won four varsity letters each in football and soccer, and three in baseball, and was an All-State honoree in all three sports.

His longest field goal was a 54-yard attempt against the New York Giants in the last preseason game of his young career. In 2014, he became the Patriots’ all- time leading scorer, surpassing Adam Vinatieri. He scored 96 points out of 96 in the 2006 season as the highest-scoring rookie, edging out the 96 points scored by Jacksonville running back Maurice Jones-Drew. He holds the record for highest average points per game scored over a career, and the first player since the AFL-NFL merger to lead the league in scoring in more than two consecutive seasons. In 2005, his senior season, he handled kickoff duties for Memphis and had 39 touchbacks on 68 kickoffs, rather than the two-inch tees allowed by the NCAA at the time. His opponents included former Atlanta Falcons running back Jerious Norwood, who returned one of his kickoffs from two yards deep in the end zone. During the 2006 preseason, he went 9-for-9 and 11-11 on field goals, going 9- for-9 on extra points, and 54 points of 38 points, for a total total of 54 points. In November 26, 2006, he made the longest kick-season career, a 52-yard kick against the Chicago Bears, which is also the longest ever made at Gillette Stadium. He had two consecutive kicks that were noticeably longer than Foxborough’s last season in his rookie season.