A Charlie Brown Kick-mas? Younghoe Koo's botched attempt sums up Giants' disastrous season
New York Giants kicker Younghoe Koo arrives at Gillette Stadium before a game against the New England Patriots on Dec. 1.(Steven Senne / Associated Press)Kicker Younghoe Koo provided a signature moment for the 2025 New York Giants.
Fittingly, it wasn't a good one.
Koo had a chance to pull the Giants to within one score of the New England Patriots with a 47-yard field goal attempt during the second quarter Monday night in Foxborough, Mass.
The ball was snapped.
Koo ran forward.
Read more:Why aren't the Rams playing $10-million wide receiver Tutu Atwell?
He brought his kicking leg back, then forward.
But Koo's foot never made it to the ball.
Instead, his toe slammed hard into the ground directly behind the pigskin, leaving holder Jamie Gillan to scramble with the ball. Gillan was tackled for a 13-yard loss, and the Giants remained in a 10-point hole on their way to a 33-15 loss.
You don't see this every day...
- NFL (@NFL) December 2, 2025
NYGvsNE on ESPN/ABC
Stream on @NFLPlus and ESPN App pic.twitter.com/vBJ0NkiMgP
After the sequence played out, "Monday Night Football" showed Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart on the sideline, appearing to roll his eyes and saying, "Oh my God." It's been that kind of season for the Giants, who lost their seventh straight game and dropped to 2-11 on the season.
Koo said after the game that despite how the sequence may have appeared, his foot did not actually get stuck in the turf. Instead, the veteran kicker said, he noticed a problem with the hold and made the split-second decision to abort.
you can't miss if you don't kick
- NFL (@NFL) December 2, 2025
NYGvsNE on ESPN/ABC
Stream on @NFLPlus and ESPN App pic.twitter.com/H9dbecGWxf
"As I was driving toward the ball, the bottom of the ball was slipping out," Koo said. "So I just pulled up on it."
Koo credited Gillan for his attempt to salvage the hold.
Jamie did a good job of catching it and putting it back," Koo said, but, at that point, it was too late."
Nonetheless, the botched play has been mocked mercilessly. Some on social media are comparing Koo to the fictional character Charlie Brown, whose repeated failure to even make contact while attempting to kick a football was a running joke in the Peanuts comic strip.
Read more:Justin Herbert considered day to day after undergoing hand surgery
Some joked that Koo purposely missed to help the Patriots cover the point spread. Others compared it to the way the ground sometimes seems to get in the way of a golfer's swing.
"Eli, it's like one of your fat nine-irons that you hit," Peyton Manning said to his brother during their "ManningCast" broadcast of the game on ESPN2. "It's all grass."
Read more:Inside 'ManningCast': How Peyton and Eli Manning are changing the way we watch sports
Giants interim coach Mike Kafka agreed with Koo's account.
"I saw it live," Kafka told reporters after the game. "The ball kind of slipped a little bit. He wasn't sure if it was going to get set. Jamie tried to reset it and by that time, he was already kind of out of his groove on it. So it was just tough right there."
Koo played four games as an undrafted rookie with the Chargers in 2017 and eventually caught on with the Atlanta Falcons, making the Pro Bowl in 2020. He was cut by Atlanta two games into this season and signed with the Giants days later.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.