It's a long shot, but there is some logic to try this out. He will more than likely have partially guaranteed minimum contract. Morstead's salary, while has a little over 1 mil guaranteed, is actually 1.3 mil. If you do the math, if Araiza beats out Morstead, you are literally spending 525K extra for a better punter, who is young and will be there for many years. Likely you sign him to a two+ year deal on the cheap and compared to Morstead after two years you are even or slightly ahead financially and have a punter solved for years to come. Don't take me wrong, TM is a solid middle of the pack punter, upgrade over Mann, albeit old and not certain when he will drop off the cliff, but he can't do this:
For one, he was better than 6th round pick where he was selected. According to Jeremiah he was 3d round talent and there were two other punters a lot worse than him than went 4th round. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...raiza-wins-ray-guy-award-top-punter-in-nation “I usually don’t spend much time watching kickers and punters until the end of the process, but I have seen a lot of him,” said Jeremiah, who views Araiza as a third-round prospect. “When a punter’s a name comes up between football guys in football conversations around the league when you’re talking about scouting, it doesn’t happen very often. ... “He’s as good of a punter as I’ve ever evaluated. I’ll put it that way. So he’s going to have an easy decision to make.” Being drafted in the 6th vs 3d or 4th cost him money, then having 4 mil contract annulled cost him money. And besides money, he was dragged through the mud. Matt went through a lot, and he wasn't even at the party when the alleged rape occurred. Now that's tough. Though if JD actually signs him, it may work out for the Jets, while at the same time making divisional opponent weaker. I mean if the guy is worth a 3d as Jeremiah suggests, that's well beyond Morstead's level. Say he kicks the lights out in this tryout, like he did in College. Why not sign the guy to a minimum deal without much guaranteed and have him battle Morstead? Everyone else has competition. Why not Morstead? And if Matt wins, it will cost us 500K extra, which we will recuperate next year compared to Morstead anyway. We will not lose financially over two years, and we might actually have the best punter in the League. I don't see why not sign him.
right i hear ya, but there's no 'me too' mobs outside Joe Doublas' office! and even when the NY rags report on it, there's almost nothing about the original rape and all that.
Whether the Jets sign him or not, I really hope that the punter rides the pine and that all Jets drives end with points.
I know, but the time will come when we will need to punt. And it could be at a critical moment. Btw, Araiza was a decent kicker in College too, made all Mountain West teams twice. Could probably serve as a back-up kicker for these numerous extra points in case old man Greg the leg slips on a banana peal.
I’m shocked we haven’t heard anything more Ik it was just yesterday but the kid can really kick it and competition never hurts. I wanna sign him before we let him get away
Haven’t heard anything about any other teams wanting him to come in for a tryout. Seems like we’re alone on this road
It seems like most teams still have him on the hands-off list. I’m not at all worried about anyone else moving in on him
He was down to under 65% on FGs by his 3rd season, he was the 115th ranked FG kicker in 2021. Even his 71.4 in 2020 was only 70th best pct in NCAA. I am going to venture a say that maybe the other 11 teams in Mountain West didn't have that great a FG kicker and they have to pick someone for All Mountain West FG kicker. That's just a guess though since I don't watch much MW football.
Still these are not bad percentages. We are only talking about him stepping in to kick in case our old starting kicker gets injured in a game. Most punters can't do that. Araiza can. This is on top of being the best punter in the history of NCAA and having remarkable camp last year before he was cut due to the bogus accusation.
His 64% would have been 39th ranked FG kicker in NFL last season, ahead of only one kicker that only had 3 attempts, and his 71.4 would have him as 38th ranked, they are bad percentages. I am going to guess that any punter, if pressed into action as a FG kicker, would be able to hit a decent amount of their attempts but not enough to make it as an actual FG kicker. None of this is to say they shouldn't give Araiza a shot, just that I don't think using has prior FG kicking as any kind of reasoning for it.
They should grab him. If you ever watched San Diego State when he was there, they literally based their offensive game plan around him and defense. 70 yard punts with no return weren’t out of the realm of possibility. It’s rare that punters are weapons but if anyone remembers the Titans/Patriots playoff game before Brady left New England, they used their punter as a weapon to win that game.
I don't know why we haven't signed him yet. A good punter for cheap. Be easy to cut bait with if anything is wrong. A good punter is a weapon.
If old man Greg gets hurt, it would not suck ass to have someone who can make an extra point or hit a FG with 70% rate for the remainder of the game. I am not saying it is the reasoning, but it is a cherry on top. On top of someone who can legitimately be the best punter in the League next year. Why is he not signed yet?
That's why I said it's nice articles don't focus on that, because normally that's what they do. I'm confused. Who. Wait...What time?
