RYAN FEELS LIKE A ROOKIE AGAIN PUNTING IN BUFFALO
Regina native competing for NFL job with Bills after a decade in Seattle
Even if things don’t work out for punter Jon Ryan with the Buffalo Bills, he’s not ready to hang up his kicking cleats.
The 36-year-old from Regina is in his 15th year as a professional punter, in either the CFL or NFL.
After he and the Seattle Seahawks, his team of the last 10 NFL seasons, mutually parted ways last week, Ryan signed two days later with the Bills.
Another NFL team close to Canada.
“I’ve played in Seattle, Winnipeg, Green Bay and now Buffalo. I like to work close to the Canadian border, apparently,” Ryan said. “I’ve never lived farther than 125 miles from the Canadian border in 15 years as a pro.”
Ryan hasn’t had much time to digest his emotional farewell to the Seahawks or acclimatize himself in western New York, some 4,200 kilometres to the east.
The point Ryan emphatically made is he still feels he can punt as well as anybody in the NFL. “I do, yeah,” Ryan said.
“I feel I still have it. I feel I can still go for a couple more years. But, unfortunately, that’s not up to me. So we’ll see what happens.”
He doesn’t have much time to show the Bills he’s a better punter than Colton Schmidt, who has held this job the last four seasons in Buffalo, averaging 44.1 yards per punt. On Sunday against the Bengals, Bills coaches seemed to have decided to split the game between the incumbent Schmidt and Ryan. Schmidt got to kick seven times in the first half, Ryan only once in the second.
Schmidt’s first four punts in the first quarter were into a stiff wind and travelled 34, 35, 35 and 36 yards. He had that wind at his back in the second quarter with acres of space in front of him each time and those kicks sailed 59, 42 and 52 yards.
Ryan’s one punt was into the wind in the fourth quarter and was snapped from the Cincinnati 41-yard line. He booted the ball into the end zone — so several yards farther than any of Schmidt’s four into-the-wind kicks.
“It wasn’t great, actually,” Ryan said, chuckling. “A bit of a mishit. That wind was definitely a factor out there. From what I’m learning from the other kickers, it gusts quite a bit down there quite regularly. So I’m trying to get used to that wind.”
Did the Bills tell Ryan anything about why they signed him? That is, to battle for the one punter’s job after cut-downs this coming Saturday, when all teams trim from a 90-man training camp rosters to 53 for the regular season? Or is he here merely to push Schmidt?
“As far as I’m concerned, we’re competing,” Ryan said. “I think we’re competing for the job. It’s obviously a very short period of time, being here for a maximum of nine days before they make the decision. It’s pretty quick. I’ll see what they do. It’s like the end in Seattle: it’s out of my control at this point. I’m just going to go and try to win the opportunity to punt.”
Speaking of Seattle, Ryan reiterated it was a mutual parting of the ways and an inevitable one after the club drafted Michael Dickson — a monster-legged punter from Australia via the University of Texas — in the fifth round of April’s NFL draft.
That’s when the red-headed Ryan knew his days in Seattle were numbered.
“Yeah, I knew it was coming. It was just a matter of when,” Ryan said. “I wanted to stay there, though, and prove I still had it. And, as well, to help the young kid adjust to the NFL. And so I thought when it was quite clear he was going to win the job, I thought it was a good time to go.
“(My agent and I) kind of talked to them and said, ‘We think now is a good time,’ and they agreed. I think that reflects on the respect we’ve had for each other over all of these years … They handled it as well as they could and hopefully I did as well. It wasn’t a messy breakup or anything. I think it ended at the right time.”
Ryan began his pro punting career with the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers during the 2004 and 2005 seasons. He then punted for the NFL’s Green Bay Packers from 2006-07 before becoming a Seahawk in 2008. In Seattle, Ryan averaged 44.7 yards per punt; last year he averaged exactly 45, almost a full yard better than Schmidt’s four-year NFL average.
Asked if he had multiple offers last week from which to choose, Ryan said: “This offer just popped up first, so we jumped on it right away.”
The move has put the Canadian in an unusual headspace, however.
“To be in one place for 10 years is a bit of a rarity nowadays. So I was pretty honoured to be able to be in Seattle for 10 years. But now it kind of, it feels a little bit weird. Everything ’s new. I feel like a rookie all over again — where to go and when to be there, the locker-room, everything. It’s all a little bit different.
“I’m taking it a day at a time here. I have no control over it. I’ll just do what I do and see where the cards fall.”