The Jets recently signed former Bengals punter Austin McNamara. Let’s therefore look at McNamara in more detail.
The 24-year old McNamara is listed at 6’4” and 204 pounds. He went undrafted out of Texas Tech last season. He has yet to make his NFL debut, but he was in training camp with the Bengals last season.
Background
McNamara was ranked as a three-star high school recruit having been an all-state punter in Arizona.
He headed to Texas Tech, where he broke a series of Texas Tech, Big 12 and NCAA records over the course of his five-year career. His 45.9 career punting average was 10th all time in the NCAA. He averaged 48.2 yards per punt in 2021, to set the school and conference marks.
During his career, McNamara was a first team all-Big 12 selection three times, a second-teamer once and an honorable mention once. He also won a Big 12 special teams player of the year award.
Measurables/Athleticism
McNamara is big for a punter, something which his special teams coach with the Bengals, Darrin Simmons, said is an advantage because it creates more speed and force.
Leg Strength
McNamara has a powerful leg and gets good hang time on his punts. In 2023 alone, he had 21 punts of 50 yards or more and he set an NCAA record with eight 50-yarders in one game in 2021.
Scouting reports indicate that he can have a tendency to outkick his coverage, which may be based almost entirely on this play where Derius Davis had an 82-yard touchdown return.
Otherwise, though, the longest return he gave up in five years was a 50-yarder, again by Davis, back in 2020.
Directional Punting
Scouting reports indicate that McNamara is not as good at putting touch on his kicks or pooch punting. He had a career-high seven touchbacks on 55 punts in 2023.
Prior to that, though, he had just 17 in 190 career punts, and he has shown some ability to pin the opposition deep.
Kicking
McNamara didn’t do any placekicking in college, but he did kick off once, although it was not a touchback.
In his final year of high school, McNamara made 12 field goals, including a 45-yarder, and all 63 of his extra point attempts.
Tackling
Officially, McNamara had just one tackle in his college career and it was a data entry mistake, so he didn’t actually have any. He doesn’t have any missed tackles either, but he got caught up in traffic on Davis’ touchdown return.
Holding
McNamara has also functioned as a holder on the placekicking unit for most of his college career with no apparent issues.
Intangibles/Miscellaneous
Another negative mentioned in McNamara’s scouting report suggests he lacks awareness of pressure and is slow to get his kicks off. These may just be assumptions based on the fact that he had four punts blocked in his career.
The Red Raiders ran one fake punt during his career, on which he completed this 34-yard pass for a first down.
It’s worth noting that one of the worst games of his career came in cold weather conditions. He averaged just 39 yards per punt against Iowa State in 2022.
Conclusions
McNamara is 15 years younger than Thomas Morstead and it’s fair to note that this latest generation of punters that he comes from have been setting the bar higher than ever in terms of punting numbers.
Morstead has continued to post solid numbers with the Jets, but the numbers he is currently putting him up would have had him among the league leaders several years ago whereas now he’s just in the middle of the pack with so many big-legged youngsters coming up.
We recently investigated whether the Jets needed to bring in any competition for Morstead and ultimately concluded that they did not. The fact they’ve signed McNamara doesn’t necessarily mean they view him as serious competition. It’s more likely that he’s just a camp leg, but he’s a player who easily could have been drafted so we shouldn’t underestimate him.
If he can impress the Jets enough, then McNamara could be a candidate to replace Morstead down the road, but his best hope this year is probably just a practice squad spot.