When the end with a team or an end for a career comes for kickers, it’s rarely happy and it rarely happens with much in the way of ceremony. The legendary Matt Bryant was supplanted by Giorgio Tavecchio, hastily re-signed, and then supplanted again by Younghoe Koo after struggling in 2019. Koo, who had himself been cut very quickly by the Chargers team that signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2017, now finds a similar story unfolding for him after several seasons in Atlanta.
The Falcons announced
today that they’ve cut Koo, who is second all-time in field goal percentage for the franchise and either third or fourth in any other kicking metric you can think of for Atlanta, and will move forward with kicker Parker Romo. The veteran kicker, who made all five of his field goal tries in Week 2, has been signed to the active roster.
Meanwhile, the man who came through with so many clutch kicks from 2019 to 2023—and even a couple in an otherwise shaky 2024—will now be looking for a new team. Again, kickers rarely get to experience a story book ending.
Obviously, the writing was on the wall for this move. After four-plus steady years as the team’s hyper-reliable option, Koo struggled mightily in 2024, ranking among the least-accurate kickers in the NFL on field goal tries. He came into 2025 in a battle with Lenny Krieg, who we now know the team never saw as particularly stiff competition for this season, and got a vote of confidence from Raheem Morris before the season began. But after barely making a 36 yarder and missing a game-tying field goal against the Buccaneers in Week 1, Koo was listed as out and did not travel to Minnesota in favor of Romo, who was perfect on his tries against the Vikings. Once Romo did well, we knew what was coming next, even if it took a little longer than we anticipated for the team to make the move.
Koo finishes his Falcons career having his 181 of 211 field goal tries for an 85.8% percentage that is, again, second in team history behind Bryant. He’s third in field goals made behind Bryant and Morten Andersen, fourth in extra points made and 10th in extra point percentage, and fifth in kickoffs.
When you’re a kicker, you eat plenty of criticism for misses, which is the nature of the position. But at the end of an era in Atlanta, I’d like to give Koo his props for the game winners in pressure cooker situations, his reliability for teams that didn’t have much going for them besides that reliability, and the way he went from undrafted free agent to onside kick wizard and one of the more accurate kickers of all-time. Though he’s tumbled down the leaderboards over the past calendar year, he’s still 13th all-time in field goal percentage, and he became a sensation for a few years in Atlanta for a reason. I wish him well and I truly hope he’s able to land elsewhere, right the ship, and continue a career that was pretty special there for a while.
For now, the Falcons move forward with Romo, who will hopefully do a steady job the rest of the way and then compete for the job with Lenny Krieg in 2025. Good luck out there, Younghoe Koo.
