New York once again brought in some preseason competition for incumbent kicker Nick Folk Thursday, signing free agent Derek Dimke to a three-year deal, this according to Dimke’s agent Paul Sheehy via Twitter. (photo: fightingillini.com)
While the Jets just re-signed Folk to a one-year deal last month, it seems that the team’s new coordinator, former assistant Ben Kotwica, held on to at least one tradition followed back when Westhoff was running things, as we’ve mentioned before.
Folk beat out Josh Brown last season for the starting job and held off Nick Novak in 2011.
Though Folk has proven he has what it takes to win the job in the summer, his performance during the season hasn’t been as telling. He had the worst field goal percentage of the four starting kickers in the division last year (78 percent), which was actually a slight improvement from his two years prior.
Dimke, on the other hand, hit both of his field goal tries last season while kicking for the Detroit Lions, though he failed to get the starting job.
Sheehy called Dimke “perfect” on Thursday when talking about his workouts with the Lions in 2012 (no surprise there), and the undrafted Illinois product held a 85 percent field goal percentage during his collegiate career.
