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The Green Bay Packers signed Daniel Whelan this offseason, giving them two punters on the 90-man roster, along with veteran Pat O’Donnell. This is not a training camp battle that will garner a ton of attention. In fact, it might not even be an actual training camp battle. But there’s a reason — whatever that may be — that the Packers added Whelan, so the question at punter heading into the summer is: Can the inexperienced Whelan push the veteran O’Donnell for the starting job?
Wheelan was named to the All-XFL team this past spring, beating out former NFL punter Marquette King. Whelan averaged 45.6 yards per punt, the third-best in the league, with a long of 66 yards. He also had 11 of his 29 punt attempts finish inside the 20-yard line with only two touchbacks.
Before that, Whelan was an All-American punter at FCS UC-Davis. In 2021, his final season, Whelan averaged 46.3 yards per punt, with 22 of his 55 attempts ending up inside the 20-yard line with a return rate of 40%, including 15 fair catches. For what it’s worth, Whelan graded out very well by PFF’s metrics with a final grade of 88.7, which would have been among the best at either the FCS or FBS levels.
Although we got just a small glimpse of Whelan during the open minicamp practices, what was evident was the power he packs. As Bill Huber of SI noted, Whelan’s average hang time on the six punts he had during the second day of practice was 4.74 seconds compared to O’Donnell’s 4.20 second average. Along with punting, Whelan was also taking reps as the holder on field goal attempts for Anders Carlson.
After bouncing from JK Scott to Corey Bojorquez, O’Donnell was brought in last offseason to provide some stability to the punter position, which he did. In terms of raw numbers, such as yards per attempt, punts inside the 20, hang time, and number of fair catches, O’Donnell ranked in the bottom third — or close to it — in those categories, but there weren’t any egregious errors either, which for the Packers was a win. O’Donnell also played a role in Mason Crosby’s bounce-back season with his ability as a holder, one of the big reasons he was signed.
If I were to guess right now, I would still predict that O’Donnell will be the Packers’ punter come Week 1. For starters, while there are cap savings if Green Bay were to release him, that figure is just $1.25 million. Not to say that the Packers can’t use all the cap help that they can get, but that number on its own isn’t nearly enough to dictate the decision, either.
Upon the signing of O’Donnell last offseason, Rich Bisaccia mentioned how he had admired his game from afar, and we have all seen, especially this offseason, the say that Bisaccia has when it comes to special teams decisions. The last thing I’ll mention is that with a rookie kicker, having O’Donnell’s experience and sound holding abilities on field goals could be quite valuable.
With that said, some of that logic could go out the window, given where this Packers team currently is. As they find themselves in the midst of transitioning to Jordan Love, just as they are doing at kicker with Carlson, at punter, Green Bay could be more willing to weather the storm that comes with relying on an inexperienced player in the hopes that they find a long-term answer at the position. If that’s the case, then Whelan may have a shot — if he performs well — to make the team.