The kids’ bedtime had gone past 11 o’clock, almost to the bottom of the hour, before Adam Tanalski had a chance to check on the game. There was little time left, barely more than two minutes in a 20-20 tie between the Patriots and Bills.
Tanalski’s night had begun there at Highmark Stadium, sitting with his 7-year-old son, also named Adam, and seven of the boy’s best friends in seats reserved for them by New England kicker Andy Borregales and long snapper Julian Ashby.
Hours earlier, between pregame warmups, the rookie specialists had swung by their section to say hello. Big Adam got a great photo from it, capturing little Adam beaming beside a smiling Andy and Julian.
It was, as Ashby would later say, “a full circle moment.”
Ashby and Borregales first visited the Tanalskis in January, among two dozen pro-ready long snappers, kickers and punters who arrive annually in Western New York for the Hammer Kicking Academy’s pre-NFL Draft training program. For 4 ½ weeks, they snap and kick at indoor facilities, train at a sports performance center, recover through cryotherapy and chiropractic, live as house guests of Adam and his wife Hannah and, naturally at that time of year, experience the area’s infamous lake-effect snow.
“Definitely experienced the winter over there,” says Borregales, a native of Caracas, Venezuela who grew up in South Florida and kicked at the University of Miami.
“We kind of rolled together and just lived in the snow for weeks just working to get better,” said Ashby, who hails from the Atlanta area and was educated in South Carolina, at Furman, and in Nashville, at Vanderbilt.
Hammer was founded by Tanalski in 2008. Himself a college kicker, for Marist and the University at Buffalo, he started with four clients. By last year, Tanalski says, he and his team of four full-time instructors worked with nearly 1,700 at camps and showcases around the country. He’s coached Borregales and Ashby since they were in high school.
“I’ve known Andres since he was 14 years old,” says Tanalski, who also helped Borregales’ older brother Jose take a swing at the NFL. “He’s come to my college program every year, including his entire time at Miami.”
Their families are close. Tanalski calls Vivian Borregales a “fantastic kicking mom” for her unflinching support of her sons through the makes every kicker strives to replicate and the misses they can struggle to overcome.
At Miami’s Pro Day in March 2021, he held for Jose, who preceded his younger brother at Miami, won the Lou Groza Award as college football’s top kicker and earned looks from the NFL’s Tampa Bay to the CFL’s Winnipeg. He did the same for Andy this past March.
Two special teams coordinators were the in audience of pro evaluators, Darren Rizzi of the Broncos and Jeremy Springer of the Patriots. Tanalski had a good relationship with each. His client Blake Grupe signed as an undrafted free agent with Rizzi’s Saints two years ago and his client Parker Romo kicked on the Patriots practice squad under Springer last December.
On the third day of this year’s draft, April 26, Tanalski learned that New England planned to select Borregales in the sixth round. He FaceTimed Jose as pick No. 182 overall was being made. Sixty-nine slots later, in the seventh round, Tanalski FaceTimed Andy and Julian just as the Pats made the long snapper the draft’s 251st choice. Their ensuing celebration was both virtual and literal.
“I’ve known Julian since he was a 172-pound junior in high school. His (high school’s) kicker was training with me, so he came to camp,” says Tanalski, who continued coaching Ashby as he filled his frame to its present-day 231 pounds.“
Knowing them now as Patriots, Tanalski watched from the stands on Sunday as the pair collaborated with holder Bryce Baringer to break two early ties with short field goals. One in the final minute of the first quarter. The other in the final second of the second quarter.
But by their next attempt to untangle a tie, the family and friends Borregales and Ashby had treated to tickets in Orchard Park had left for home. It was a school night, and Tanalski had a long drive ahead of him. Out of Highmark in the third quarter, he was home for the fourth.
And with his young son and daughter now asleep, Tanalski was in front of the TV in time for Drake Maye to drive the Pats downfield. Twelve yards to Stefon Diggs and 19 yards to Kayshon Boutte, and consecutive runs from inside the Bills’ 40-yard line were followed by Buffalo timeouts.
He could see where this was heading.
“I actually woke up my wife Hannah,” Tanalski recalls. “I said, ‘Andy’s going to hit a game winner to beat the Bills.’”
The kid he knew so well, the one who struggled initially for the Pats, missing a field goal try in Week 1 and two extra points in Week 2 – in Miami, on his college home turf, no less – wasn’t about to miss this chance.
“There was no doubt,” Tanalski says. “That kid is the most confident player that you could have.”
(Photo by Timothy T Ludwig/Getty Images)
Back at Highmark, as Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott used his final timeouts and before New England’s Mike Vrabel took his first, Ashby and Borregales calmy readied alongside Baringer, the veteran leader in their midst.
“I’m just on the sideline taking my practice kicks,” Borregales later said. “I try to time it up whenever a crowd gets really loud. When I’m back there, it works for me. I don’t know if anyone else does that. That definitely helps me just get used to the noise.”
On 4th-and-5, after Maye centered the ball between the hash marks in taking a sack with 20 seconds to go, the field-goal operation was ready for their turn. It was loud. The kick was long. Fifty-two yards.
In red shoes, long white sleeves and his all-navy blue uniform, Borregales waited on Ashby’s snap. Tanalski noticed a slight difference between the stance he took against the Bills and his pre-kick setup earlier in the season. This, he thought, looked more Andy’s college stance.
From that stance, on Ashby’s snap, before NBC’s Sunday Night audience, Borregales lit into the football. His stroke, the one Tanalski says Andy learned from Jose – “his brother made that swing” – was smooth and powerful.
“Did you see that ball?” Tanalski said. “That ball was good for 75 yards, it was unbelievable. Right down the middle. And I will say, what a perfect snap.”
Tanalski’s praise didn’t stop there. He cited the leadership of Baringer for “ushering in two rookies” and “stabilizing that group.” He credited Springer, who Tanalski first befriended when Jeremy was coaching college ball, for his positivity and preparation of two first-year pros.
He said that much and plenty more, speaking on the phone during a mid-week, mid-morning interlude between Zooms with college specialists planning to join him for next January’s pre-draft program.
“I want you to know that you guys got two special individuals and some really talented people in New England and I think that, not only the community, but the team will embrace them as they grow together,” Tanalski said. “There’s always going to be some bumps on the road, but I think (the Patriots) struck gold.”
Jun 9, 2025; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots long snapper Julian Ashby (47) walks to the practice fields at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Eric Canha-Imagn Images
On Sunday night, in the fifth game of their NFL careers, Ashby snapped for Borregales, who struck the biggest kick by a Patriot in years to beat the previously undefeated Bills. It was, to repeat, a full-circle moment for two close friends linked to that time and place.
“You can just tell the friendship and chemistry that we have, because we’ve pretty much spent almost every single day together since January,” Borregales said a few days later. “I love him, and he’s really the start to the operation.
“I always tell him, ‘Look, I can’t do my job if you don’t do your job.’ I’ve said before whatever praise I get is really for Julian and Bryce, because at the end of the day if anything is wrong or a little off, you don’t know what will happen. Them being perfect and me just executing the kick is the best part of it.”
What was perfect about Sunday’s execution wasn’t how they did it; but where and when they did it.
About 22 miles from Highmark Stadium, the Murchie Family Fieldhouse sits on the University at Buffalo’s North Campus. It’s where the Bulls football team practices indoors, where Hammer Kicking sometimes drills and where Borregales stood in January, focusing on a spot 55 yards from the goal post.
In red cleats, even then, he struck his pre-kick pose. The ball was snapped, Tanalski held it in place and Borregales, repeating the swing his brother taught him, whipped his right leg forward. Thrusting his hips through the ball with a slight hop forward, his eyes followed its flight. So did Tanalski’s.
The kick was high and true, straight down the middle. It might have been good from 75.
Bob Socci is in his 13th season calling play-by-play for the Patriots Radio Network on 98.5 The Sports Hub. He’ll join Scott Zolak for the broadcast of the Patriots at Saints on Sunday at 1 p.m.
