The Atlanta Falcons have announced that kicker Younghoe Koo will not play in Sunday night’s game against the Minnesota Vikings. The team stated Saturday afternoon that Koo’s absence is not related to an injury and confirmed he did not travel with the team to Minnesota.
In response, the Falcons elevated Parker Romo from the practice squad to fill the kicker position for the upcoming game. Romo joined Atlanta earlier this week after the team held tryouts for kickers, following Koo’s missed 44-yard field goal at the end of last week’s loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Head coach Raheem Morris addressed questions throughout the week regarding Koo’s status as starting kicker, especially after Koo recorded his lowest field goal success rate last season at 73.5%. Over his last 10 games, excluding time missed due to injury in 2024, Koo has converted 15 out of 23 field goal attempts.
Last Sunday’s miss was notable as it was Koo’s first failure on a potential game-tying or go-ahead field goal in the final minute of regulation or overtime since September 2022. Before that attempt, he had made seven consecutive kicks in similar high-pressure situations.
“That’s cut-and-dry position, right? You either make it or you don’t, and we’ve got to have guys in a position to make them,” Morris said Wednesday. “And there’s no real coaching points there. Obviously, there’s kicking aspects and there’s points of those coaching things that they want to do and all those things. But for us, from a fan standpoint, a coach’s standpoint, everything else, you either make them or you don’t. You’ve got to go out and let it be competitive at every level. You want to go out and try to win games, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you make those kicks — you make them all clean, and that’s not the conversation. But we put it on ourselves, and now we’ve got to go out there and we’ve got to be ready to deal and be ready to make the best out of it.”
Koo commented on the recent scrutiny over his accuracy: “We’ve been in this situation so many times,” he said Monday. “The frustration just came out of just disappointment in myself and knowing that I know I’m better than that. On top of that, I let the guys down.”
With Koo unavailable for Sunday’s game, Romo will handle kicking duties against Minnesota—a team he played for last year. In four games with the Vikings during 2024, Romo made 11 of 12 field goals across various distances and converted seven of eight extra point attempts.
Special teams coordinator Marquice Williams spoke about Romo’s qualities: “He came into a situation last year when he took over for (Vikings Kicker) Will Reichard in Minnesota and he did a great job,” Williams said. “… You join a team in the middle of the season, that is stress and that is some type of adversity going there to keep the ball rolling with that team that he was with. So, to see him do that and then his experience, he’s been with different teams. He recently was with New England and he had a really good offseason, too, and a good training camp with New England. So, his leg strength, his experience. I like his attitude. I like his poise.”
The Falcons are set to play against the Vikings on Sunday night at 8:20 p.m. ET.
