The New England Patriots are far from a perfect team after two weeks of play. While Mike Vrabel's 53-man roster was set before Week 1, the first-year head coach is continuing to evaluate his players in an effort to put his team in the best position to win every week.
Unfortunately, one of his decisions coming out of training camp is already looking like it was a mistake, and it is too late for Vrabel and the front office to call for a mulligan on this one. It may have been a given after the franchise used a sixth-round pick on him, but Andy Borregales has not performed up to expectations through two weeks of play after missing one field goal and a pair of extra points.
Patriots Having Seller's Remorse With Parker Romo Thriving in Atlanta
This has led to fans asking why Borregales made the final cut over Parker Romo. The fact that Romo has supplanted Younghoe Koo as the Atlanta Falcons' starter since being released by the Patriots only makes New England's choice to release him look even worse.
"We're going to go with (Parker) Romo," Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said Friday, via senior team reporter Tori McElhaney. "He earned it last week going 5-for-5, and you gotta go with that again."
After accounting for 16 of Atlanta's 22 points in their Week 2 win over the Minnesota Vikings, Romo has successfully gone from undrafted free agent to NFL starter before Borregales has managed to have a single game without a missed attempt at a field goal or an extra point.
These are the kind of mistakes in the draft that fans don't forget about. If Borregales continues to have issues putting the ball through the uprights, the murmurs about this pick being a catastrophic miss will only get louder. This sort of backlash from Vrabel's first draft as the team's head coach is not something the Patriots anticipated at the time, but it is the reality they must deal with now.
For Borregales' sake, as well as Vrabel's for that matter, Patriots fans have to hope the rookie figures things out and eliminates these issues from the kicking game.