Younghoe Koo Ready to Step in for Giants if Needed on Sunday

New York Giants kicker Younghoe Koo is “very ready” to go if he’s called upon to kick this weekend by his coaches.

Koo, who was signed to the Giants practice squad before their Week 4 game against the Los Angeles Chargers, has been preparing in earnest if fellow kicker Graham Gano, who popped up on the injury report this week with a sore neck, isn’t ready.

Koo, who was cut by the Atlanta Falcons two weeks into the current season, admittedly had to come in, get used to working with a new battery that includes long snapper Casey Kreiter and holder Jamie Gillan, and adapt to kicking outdoors after spending seven years doing most of his kicking in a domed stadium.

In the interim, given that the Giants needed a kicker for Gano when he landed in IR with a groin injury suffered in Week 3’s pregame warmups, the team went with Jude McAtamney, who has been with the team since last year.

But now that Koo has had enough time to work with his new teammates, he’s seemingly settled in well within the Giants' kicking battery.

“I think there's a lot of comfort with him, (punter) Jamie (Gillan), (long snapper) Casey (Kreiter),” special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial said Thursday.

“He has done a great job being outdoors, obviously kicking outdoors a lot now. And again, he has experience in many NFL stadiums. Still, coming here, understanding the operation, getting his specific hold the exact way that he wants it, I think, was important.”

Ghobrial explained that every kicker is different in the finer points of the operation —such as the ball's tilt, rotation, and so forth —but that all of that has smoothed out.

“Now it was just putting himself in that position with the timing of when to start his kicks. It's been very rhythmic, and it's been replicated over and over until it's consistent now. So, if it's him, I'm excited to see what he can do.”

If the Giants go with Koo this weekend in Chicago, where the weather forecast is expected to be nasty, Koo said that the work he’s done since coming to the Giants, where the weather can be erratic in terms of the wind, should be of help.

“The good thing is, out here, you get the same wind. Different kinds of wind patterns out here. You get all kinds of elements, so you get to work on that,” he said.

“So, trusting in the preparation, and then pregame, you kind of go through what the wind is doing and make adjustments from there.”

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