Falcons sign K Elliott Fry to practice squad, plan to promote to roster for Week 4; cut P Cameron Nizialek

The Falcons had an untimely pre-game injury to kicker Younghoe Koo before Week 3’s matchup against the Bears, and it cost them 4 points over the course of the day. Koo reportedly suffered a groin strain in warm ups, but tried to gut it out over the course of the game leading to a missed XP and FG. It made a bad performance that much worse for Atlanta, and it seems that Koo is expected to miss even more time going forward.

To address that issue, the Falcons have been investigating free agents kickers over the past few days. Two candidates were brought in for workouts: Kai Forbath and Elliott Fry. The team appears to have made their decision, going with the younger option in Fry.

Fry has thus far had a fairly quiet NFL career. He got his start in the AAF kicking for the Orlando Apollos, where he hit all 14 of his FG attempts. After that, he’s bounced around between the Chicago Bears, Baltimore Ravens, Carolina Panthers, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Fry has not yet registered a kick in a regular season NFL game after being waived multiple times at final cuts.

It seems Fry will finally get his opportunity, with the Falcons reportedly planning to promote him to the active roster for Week 4’s matchup with the Packers “if all goes well in practice”. I have no idea what that means, but the team doesn’t really have much time to investigate other options. This probably also means that Younghoe Koo is unlikely to play on Monday Night Football.

We’ll hope Fry can have a successful NFL debut filling in for the injured Koo, as Atlanta will need all three parts of the team firing on all cylinders to have any shot at beating the Packers.

Update: The Falcons have made the move official and announced they have released punter Cameron Nizialek. Nizialek was surprisingly protected on the practice squad for two straight weeks before getting cut.