Nick Folk Reveals Why He Joined the Falcons For 19th NFL Season

New Atlanta Falcons kicker Nick Folk may be the team's most important offseason acquisition after struggling at the position the last two seasons.

New Atlanta Falcons kicker Nick Folk has led the NFL in field goal accuracy for three consecutive seasons. | Atlanta Falcons

NFL training camp has been an annual occasion for Nick Folk for nearly two decades.

The newly signed Atlanta Falcons kicker reported to his 19th career training camp alongside the team’s veterans on Tuesday, July 28.

Folk told reporters on Tuesday that he’s excited to be at the Falcons’ Flowery Branch facility and looking forward to building chemistry on his sixth NFL team ahead of the 2026 season.

“Always excited,” Folk said. “I tell everyone there’s nothing like playing on Sundays, being in front of your people, your fans. Training camp’s just the start of that. Just excited to get going.”

Folk spent the last year in his second stint with the New York Jets. Coincidentally, in the Big Apple, the veteran kicker made a career-best 58-yard field goal to beat the Falcons 27-24 as time expired when the teams met in Week 13 last November.

Signing a two-year contract worth $9 million with Atlanta in March, Folk leaned on existing NFL connections and familiarity when inking the deal. 

First-year Atlanta Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski hired Craig Aukerman as the special teams coordinator. Aukerman was Folk’s special teams coordinator for the Tennessee Titans during the kicker’s two-season stint from 2023 to 2024. 

Under Aukerman, Folk’s season field goal percentage jumped from 86.5% in 2022 for the New England Patriots to 96.7% in 2023 in Tennessee. 

Furthermore, Folk was a teammate of Falcons punter Jake Bailey in New England. 

Folk also added that family played a role. They’re settled in Dallas, where he began his NFL career in 2007, and mentioned that travel will be easier between the southern stages.

“It was a whole bunch of things – a lot of positives to it,” Folk said. 

Atlanta signing Folk comes after a kicking carousel from last season. Kicking woes plagued Atlanta in 2025. 

The Falcons used three different starting kickers: Younghoe Koo, Parker Romo, and Zane Gonzalez. Koo and Romo were both released midseason and haven’t found a new NFL home yet, while Gonzalez’s late-season production landed him a contract from the Miami Dolphins.

Close losses were costly for the Falcons and contributed to their NFL playoff drought, which extended to eight years. But Folk thinks Atlanta is trending upwards.

“I like the way the team is going,” he said. “So hopefully we can get over the top and get in the playoffs.”

Falcons training camp ends on Aug. 20 after their joint practices and subsequent NFL preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts.

“The on-the-field stuff will take care of itself,” Folk said when asked about training camp goals. 

“But being a good locker room, being good teammates – I think that’s the big part of training camp.”

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