If there is one position truly up for grabs for the Kansas City Chiefs during the 2020 offseason, it’s the punter position.
The Chiefs recently said goodbye to longtime punter Dustin Colquitt and with that decision comes a new punter battle in Kansas City. The Chiefs brought in free agent punter Tyler Newsome ahead of the 2020 NFL draft. They also signed their top-rated punter, Tommy Townsend, as an undrafted free agent following the draft.
“The kid’s got a lot of talent,” Toub said of Townsend during Tuesday’s media availability. “We really liked him coming out. I had him rated as the best punter coming out this year and he was available for us, and those guys got it done to get him. So that was a pretty good deal.”
Toub has been with Colquitt for the last seven seasons, so what is he looking for out of a new punter? Right now, it appears he’s just looking forward to a good competition between the two players in Kansas City.
“The No. 1 thing is, it is going to be a true competition,” Toub said. “There’s nobody really out in front right now as we look at it. I like them both. They’ve both got really strong legs, really powerful legs. They consistently hit over 5.0 [second] hang times, which is impressive. Tommy [Townsend] is a little [cleaner] in his technique as far as consistency, whereas Tyler [Newsome] is a little more erratic. But the results are the same. They both bomb the ball. We just need to clean Tyler up a bit more. But I’ll tell you what, the competition is going to be real fun.”
It sounds like Townsend is a bit ahead of Newsome early on in the process, but keep in mind that Toub hasn’t had an opportunity to coach these players hands-on yet. In lieu of the ability to work with the coaching staff, Harrison Butker and James Winchester are taking a role in developing the new punters, videotaping all the work they’re currently doing together.
“Right now, we’re kind of fortunate because those guys can get together and kick and work on the operation and they can do that on their own,” Toub explained. “So, we can work our skillset whereas to play football, you need 22 guys out there. It’s good for us at this time to be able to do those kinds of things. We just can’t sit down and meet face-to-face and I can’t be out there watching them, that’s the unfortunate thing. They video everything they do, and they send it to me, and we talk about it virtually. Yeah, it’s going to set us back a little bit because during this time of the year is when you’re working fundamentals with everybody else, and that’s going to be set back. But everybody’s in the same boat, we’re just going to have to hit the ground running when we do get to camp, or when we all get together.”
While the punting competition is currently taking place in the virtual space, rest assured that it won’t really kick-off until these players can get in front of their position coach. That’s when the real fun will begin.
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