Less than a year ago, the Patriots made Justin Rohrwasser the first kicker off the board in the 2020 NFL Draft. Now, it appears they’re ready to cut bait on that investment.
As first reported by ESPN’s Mike Reiss on Tuesday, the team is waiving the former fifth round pick. This comes a week after the team re-signed Nick Folk, who stepped in as their starting kicker last season.
Rohrwasser’s tenure in New England was rocky from start to finish. Shortly after he was drafted, some on social media pointed out a tattoo on his arm with the logo of the ‘Three Percenters’, a group defined by the ADL as an “anti-government militia movement.” This led to considerable blowback, and Rohrwasser announcing he would have the tattoo removed.
Things didn’t go much better for Rohrwasser on the football field. Originally the lone kicker in training camp, he got off to an erratic start hitting roughly half his kicks over the first week. Folk was signed in late August and ended up winning the job, which led to Rohrwasser being cut and moved to the practice squad. Despite relaxed rules about practice squad elevations, he played no games for the Patriots in 2020.
With Rohrwasser no longer on the roster, the Patriots will have Folk and Roberto Aguayo, who was signed to the practice squad late last season, as their kickers heading into the draft.
In addition to Rohrwasser, the team also waived linebackers Cassh Maluia and Michael Pinckney. Maluia was a sixth round pick in 2020, who spent the season on-and-off the roster, playing almost exclusively special teams when he was active. Pinckney was undrafted in 2020, but signed with the Patriots practice squad in October. In November, he was suspended by the league for taking a banned supplement.
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