Patriots get a new kicker

Another kicker for the New England Patriots.

This is getting to be a lot. This will be kicker No. 4 for the team. That's right. They went out and signed veteran Kai Forbath Thursday, according to a Boston.com report.

The reason they did this is because they need a kicker for their upcoming Sunday night bout against the Houston Texans. They need a kicker for this bout because the one the only Nick Foles underwent an appendectomy on Thursday morning, as many outlets are reporting. Apparently, this isn't some super long term thing that's going to hold him back, but he won't be able to play on Sunday, so the Patriots need someone who can.

Remember, Foles was kicker No. 3 for the Pats. As you may recall, Stephen Gostkowski was the starting kicker at the beginning of the season--and struggled big time. But it wasn't the struggles that put Gostkowski out for the season on the injured reserve. That had to do with his hip injury. Then, as you may recall, the team turned to Mike Nugent, but he went 5-for-8 on his field goal attempts, so the team cut him in favor of the veteran Foles. You might also remember that Younghoe Koo was on the Patriots practice squad briefly (he's a member of the Atlanta Falcons now), so there's been all sorts of guys on the team this season.

In his career, Forbath has made 120 of his 140 field goal attempts (85.7 percent success rate), but he missed five of his 39 extra point kick attempts last year. There's always a downside to everything.

Hopefully, he's adequate enough to do the job for the Patriots on Sunday because odds are, they'll go back to Foles after it's all over and done with. We'll see what happens next week though...