The Jets cut kicker Matt Ammendola and elevated Alex Kessman off their practice squad on Saturday, making a change at the position after Ammendola had missed three field goals in the last two weeks and five over the prior six games.
Unfortunately, Kessman didn’t have a much better showing, missing both of his PAT attempts in the Jets’ 33-18 loss to the Eagles, both going wide left.
“I don’t know what happened; this is what I do for a living, and I have to make those kicks, no excuses,” Kessman said after the game. “Just a combination of excitement and a little nerves, but nothing I hadn’t felt before. I’m doing the same thing I’ve always done, I have to make the kicks.”
Kessman said he had been having good practices and had good warm-ups, but he didn’t get a third attempt despite the Jets’ third touchdown; not only did Saleh decide to go for it on fourth and goal instead of giving Kessman a field goal attempt, he also decided, after scoring, to immediately go for two.
Discouraging for Kessman, but nothing he doesn’t understand.
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“I forgot about the first one because I can’t do anything about it. I have to move on to the next kick, and it just happened to do the same thing as the first one,” Kessman said of his day. “I have to control what I can control, and that’s if they send me out there to kick, I have to go out there. I didn’t do my job today, plain and simple, and I’ll come into work tomorrow and move forward and learn from this. I won’t let two kicks define me, and the kicker I am.”
After Kessman’s kickoff following the third score, the only further action he saw was the second-half kickoff – but it’s also worth noting that of his four kickoffs, only the first was a touchback; the others were fielded at the 10, the three, and the one, the latter of that group a kick that bounced straight up in the air inside the five and died before the goal line, forcing Jalen Reagor to pick it up.
“I don’t feel bad for him, because he’s a pro who will get right back. He knows what he has to do better, and we have to control what we can control,” quarterback Zach Wilson said of the day.
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Kessman is ready to get back to work, but come next Sunday when they play the Saints, might the Jets have their third kicker in three games?
“We got someone else in the building, and we’ll just keep going until something works,” Saleh said.
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