BREAKING: #Patriots are placing Stephen Gostkowski on injured reserve, per league source. Story upcoming on https://t.co/BIqlcKzPKK

— Jim McBride (@globejimmcbride) October 2, 2019

So news broke earlier today that the Patriots were working out free agent kickers, which as Mike Reiss pointed out, the Pats do this ever year at a number of positions just to cover their asses.

The Patriots are working out some free-agent kickers today, which is consistent with their due-diligence approach at all positions to keep emergency lists updated. Veteran Stephen Gostkowski has missed four P.A.T.s this year, which adds a layer of context to the kicker workouts.

— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) October 2, 2019

So no big deal really?

Well it turns out it wasn’t just a ploy to bring in some competition for Gostkowski, it was a legitimate injury concern as the Pats just placed their kicker on IR. As bad as Gostkowski has been this year with 4 missed PATs, I’m not any more excited for a street free agent to now be handling kicking duties.

This also raises the question is this it for Gostkowski in a Patriots uniform? The team put him on IR, which means technically they could bring him back later this year, but you only get two of those a season and the Pats already have some key guys on IR:

• Isaiah Wynn
• James Devlin
• N’Keal Harry

So are you really going to bring back a kicker over your (alleged) franchise LT or your first round Wide Receiver? Nope. Gostkowski has one year left on his deal, but at 35 years old with a cap hit of 5.4M next year, this could be it for him if it is any type of significant injury.

Let the kicking chaos continue.