New England Patriots: Special Teams Patchwork, Kicker and Long-Snapper Signed

With the release of long-snapper Jake Ingram and the injury to kicker Stephen Gostkowski keeping him out at least two weeks, the New England Patriots went to the free agent market and came back with some fresh groceries in Baltimore Ravens long-snapper Matt Katula and former Cincinnati Bengals kicker Shayne Graham. This is all according to ESPNBoston.com's Mike Reiss.

Bill Belichick preaches about execution in all three phases and each player's ability to do the little things right.

Well, there has been one big thing in Jake Ingram's job description he hasn't been doing well recently: snapping the ball long.In fact, his snaps have skipped into the hands of Zoltan Mesko over the past few weeks especially, resulting in a few punts that nearly went terribly wrong for young Mesko.

Ingram shined as a rookie, until he declined as a sophomore, but Katula brings experience to the position.

There's not a whole lot of info out on Katula, who was the Ravens' long-snapper from 2005-2009. His release from the team was seen as a surprise by many. He played in all 16 games in each of those seasons, but he was injured for much of the second half of 2009 and had some bad snaps.

According to several publications, it's believed he was effected by tendinitis in his elbow, so we can safely assume that he won't let the Patriots down.

After the cut, John Harbaugh said of Katula, "Matt's a very good snapper. There's no question he can do it in this league. There's a couple things I think he's still working on, he's cleaning up a little bit from last year...I'm very confident he'll be snapping for somebody this year."

Shayne Graham played one game this season for the New York Giants and was a perfect 4-for-4 on his PAT tries, but his accuracy has dipped dramatically over the past few seasons, free-falling from 91.2 to 82.1 percent.

This kicker has noteworthy experience kicking at Heinz Field, which is a difficult place to kick at. According to NESN.com, "Graham has converted nine of 11 field-goal attempts in six games at Heinz Field, and he has made all 12 of his extra points. His 81.8 percent field-goal conversion rate is ranked fifth out of the six visiting kickers who have attempted at least six field goals at Heinz Field, which was built in 2001."

Ordinarily, two moves on the special teams roster wouldn't be worth mentioning in an article, but one has to wonder if just five days will be long enough for the trio of the long-snapper, place-holder, and kicker to get on the same page, get comfortable with one another and develop rapport.

The Patriots and Steelers game could likely become one of inches and every little thing will count.

Every field goal, every snap, every inch will be contested. And why not? Elite status in the NFL is on the line.

And the elite teams do everything well. Even the little things.

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