Nick Folk remembers Mason Taylor from his last stint with the Jets.
Taylor, the Jets’ rookie tight end, was six years old running around the practice field during summer camp at SUNY Cortland. His dad, Jason, was on the team. For good measure, Folk also played with Taylor’s uncle, Zach Thomas, two years prior to that in Dallas.
Folk, 40, asked Taylor on Friday if he remembered living in New York during his dad’s one-year stint with the Jets. The answer: a little bit.
“The way I look at it now, I want to keep playing,” Folk said just a few days after the Jets brought him in for a tryout and signed him to help solve an emerging kicking problem. “There’s nothing better than kicking field goals on Sunday or Monday or whatever you want to look at it. And then I enjoy it and I want to do it until I can’t compete at the highest level and/or my wife and kids say, ‘Time to come home.’”
Folk’s family gave him the green light for Year 18 in the NFL, the Jets gave him a homecoming nine seasons after he last suited up for Gang Green and here he was Friday, sauntering to the post-practice podium, joking about faces he recognized among the media corps.
This is not the Jets doing a favor for an old friend.
Folk has led the league in field-goal percentage for each of the last two seasons with the Titans and was perfect on extra points last year. Since missing the entire 2018 season — his career seemingly over after being released by the Buccaneers — Folk has not missed a field goal under 40 yards. He is considered the favorite to win the kicking job against Harrison Mevis.
Folk missed the final three games of last season with injury, the main reason he was available for the Jets to bring in off the street at the end of July.
It is a welcome reunion on both sides.
The Jets went through five kickers last season, looked on their way to more trouble and could use some stability at the position. Folk gets another year of doing what he loves to do.
“It’s great to be back in the area,” Folk said. “I love the Northeast, I love it up here. New Jersey’s been awesome to my family and I. Three of my kids were born here, so they’ll come up at some point. We were gonna come up here for spring break this year and it kinda fell through. I guess it was God’s way of saying, ‘You don’t need to go now. Come back later.’ ”
Since Folk left the Jets in 2016, he’s had a fourth kid and the franchise has changed its logo and uniforms, to say nothing of how many different head coaches and quarterbacks it’s gone through.
Aaron Glenn, the Jets’ first-year coach, briefly crossed paths with Folk when he was ending his time with the Cowboys at the same time the kicker was starting his stint in Dallas. Folk is five years older than special teams coordinator Chris Banjo, and no, it’s not the first time that’s happened.
“Last year, I was the same age as my head coach [Brian Callahan], that was a little strange,” Folk said.
As long as Folk keeps making kicks, age will just be a number.
If he is anywhere near as good for the Jets as he was for the Titans, he will quickly attain Folk Hero status yet again in New York.
“Excited to be back,” Folk said. “It’s a lot of fun, great organization. I had a great seven years here. Hopefully make it a great eighth and maybe longer.”