Once Beloved Viking Dropped by Falcons
Remember Parker Romo? The man has not found staying power in the NFL after a brief 2024 stint with the Minnesota Vikings. Serving as the Atlanta Falcons kicker for several games this season, Raheem Morris’ team gave Romo the boot on Tuesday.
Once upon a time, the Minnesota Vikings employed a folkloric kicker, and one year later, that man has been kicked to the curb by the Atlanta Falcons.
Romo will now bide his time and hope for the next kicking assignment, which may not be terribly imminent.
Falcons Release Ex-Vikings Kicker Parker Romo
A short experiment is over.
Romo No More in ATL
Romo is out in Atlanta. AtlantaFalcons.com‘s Tarrin Waack wrote Tuesday, “The Atlanta Falcons signed offensive lineman Andrew Stueber and released kicker Parker Romo, the team announced Tuesday. NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo was first to report the Romo release.”
“He also reported the Falcons are signing kicker Zane Gonzalez. However, the team has not officially announced the latter. The Falcons also announced Tuesday they released kicker Ben Sauls from the practice squad and signed long snapper Zach Triner to it.”
It’s Gonzalez’s time for the Falcons.
His Performance with the Falcons
Romo played 7 games for the Falcons this season, connecting on 11 field goals in 14 attempts. That translated into an underwhelming 78.6%, which did not have staying power beyond the season’s midpoint. He also missed one extra point that did him no favors.
Atlanta evidently believes in Gonzalez, a man who hasn’t kicked full-time since the 2021 season. In that campaign, Gonzalez hit 20 of 22 field goals for the Carolina Panthers and showed up back on the scene in 2024 with the Washington Commanders, where he struggled.
Put simply, Atlanta soured on Romo and will give Gonzalez a fair shake. Younghoe Koo to Parker Romo to Zane Gonzalez. Sounds like a pre-Will Reichard Vikings-like situation.
A Flashback to his Vikings Run
Romo served as the Vikings’ primary kicker from Weeks 10 through 13 in 2024 after rookie Will Reichard landed on injured reserve. In that stretch, he was damn steady — the kind of fill-in every team hopes for. He nailed almost every makeable kick, provided the team’s only points in an ugly win over Jacksonville, and even buried a game-winning field goal against the Bears on the road.
When Reichard recovered, Minnesota had no choice but to let Romo go, despite his success. Since then, he’s been caught in the journeyman shuffle, bouncing around tryouts, practice squads, and Atlanta for the better part of a year — a proven leg without a long-term home, waiting for another team to finally give him a real shot.
Now What for Romo?
Romo spent the offseason with the New England Patriots, but lost a summer kicking competition to rookie Andy Borregales. The Falcons scooped him, and as mentioned above, he lasted seven games.
The former Viking will return to a familiar spot, waiting for a call from some kicker-needy team — probably a practice squad as New England offered down the stretch of 2024.
Unfortunately for his sake, he had his one big chance with the Falcons, and it did not work out.
The Falcoholic on the Kicker Switch
Dave Choate wrote Tuesday, “Gonzalez, 30, has hit exactly 80% of his field goal tries and 95.4% of his extra points for his career. His early career was defined by misses, but things stabilized after he ended up with the Arizona Cardinals in 2018, where he hit 81.8% of his field goals and was quite sharp on his rare tries from 50-plus.
“Gonzalez can also handle kickoffs in a pinch, something he has plenty of experience doing, but is not a high-end kicker overall. The Falcons are just hoping he can be consistent and reliable enough to be better for them than either Younghoe Koo or Romo.”
Atlanta’s special teams rank 28th in the NFL per DVOA.
“Both of those kickers are waived after highly visible misses that wrecked their chances of winning a game. Koo missed a 44 yard field goal in Week 1 against the Buccaneers that would have sent a hard-fought battle into overtime, while Romo badly missed an extra point that would have tied things up with the Patriots late in the fourth quarter in a game the Falcons ultimately lost by that single point,” Choate added.
“Romo was 11/14 on field goals overall with just the one extra point miss, but as a kicker, it’s hard to survive being one of the biggest reasons your team lost a game; Romo had been on thin ice before this last game and probably should have been replaced earlier. Like Koo, he’ll hope to catch on elsewhere; he had an impressive stint with the Vikings last year and a quality summer with New England that should help him in that regard.”
Gonzalez will kick for the Falcons this Sunday in Germany against the Indianapolis Colts.
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