The NFL Draft is true across the nook and we are going to spherical out our positional rankings collection by having a look a the specialist positions, kickers and punters. There should not normally a ton of kickers and punters that get drafted yearly, so as an alternative of rating them, we are going to evaluate a handful of gamers that we predict have an opportunity to get drafted. It’s straightforward to neglect what number of specialist gamers get drafted annually, however historical past tells us there are normally just a few that come off the board.
Within the final 10 years, there have been 18 kickers drafted. The one 12 months a kicker was not drafted in that time-frame was in 2015. The 2 highest picks allotted to kickers since 2014 have been Roberto Aguayo, who was drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with choose 28 of the 2nd spherical (59th general) within the 2016 draft, and Jake Moody who was drafted by the San Fransisco 49ers with choose 36 of the third spherical (99th general) within the 2023 draft. The common general draft choose of kickers since 2014 has been choose 174 which lands on the finish of the fifth spherical.
Surprisingly, extra punters have been drafted over the previous 10 years than kickers, with 21 punters picked since 2014. The one 12 months a punter hasn’t been drafted in that time-frame was in 2017. There have been three punters drafted within the 4th spherical of the draft since 2014; Jordan Stout (Ravens) and Jake Camarda (Buccaneers) in 2022, and Mitch Wishnowsky (49ers) in 2019. The common general draft choose of punters since 2014 has been choose 191 which lands in the midst of the sixth spherical.
Punter – Tory Taylor (Iowa)
Taylor rewrote the punting file books throughout his school profession for the Hawkeyes. He set the NCAA file with 4479 complete punting yards. Taylor was a three-time All-American and in his ultimate season was a unanimous first-team All-American and received the Ray Man Award for the nation’s finest punter. He additionally holds the Massive Ten Convention file for profession common yards per punt with 46.3 yards. In his profession, Taylor collected 40 punts that went 50-plus yards and 32 punts contained in the opponent’s 20-yard line. He did all of this in a tricky climate local weather in Iowa, so climate isn’t a lot of an element for him. Taylor has an opportunity to be the highest-drafted punter up to now 10 years, the third spherical is a stretch however not out of the query, he needs to be off the board in spherical 4.
Kicker – Joshua Karty (Stanford)
Karty had a strong ultimate two seasons at Stanford making 91.1% of his subject objectives over his junior and senior seasons. He has made eight subject objectives of 50-plus yards in his profession, and his longest subject aim made was 61 yards (2022). Karty has a major leg that ought to produce made subject objectives within the mid-50-yard vary. His kickoff energy is spectacular and he can drive it deep into the top zone. Karty has the potential to be a strong NFL kicker for a very long time, I might count on him to get drafted across the fifth spherical.
Kicker – Cam Little (Arkansas)
Little made 53/64 (82.8%) of subject objectives in his profession. His profession lengthy is 56 yards and he confirmed strong accuracy from 50-plus yards going 7/11 (63.6%) over his profession. Little might use some extra consistency from 40-49 yards, going solely 12/17 (70.6%) in his profession, which might have ranked near the underside of the NFL final season. He solely allowed eight kickoff returns in 2023. Little ought to hear his title known as earlier than the 2024 draft is over.
Kicker – Will Reichard (Alabama)
Reichard is an skilled kicker that has made kicks in large video games over the previous 5 seasons at Alabama. He made 87% of subject objectives over his profession and his career-long subject aim was 52 yards. He was excellent from below 40 yards out going 94.2% for his profession from that vary. His leg power isn’t pretty much as good as the opposite kickers on this record however his accuracy and expertise ought to give him an opportunity to compete for a beginning spot within the NFL.
