There will be several interesting camp battles to watch for the San Francisco 49ers in the coming months, but one that’s easy to overlook is the punter battle.
Corliss Waitman and Jack Bouwmeester will duke it out in training camp and the preseason to see who will punt for San Francisco during the regular season.
Punter battles aren’t exactly exciting. They aren’t anywhere near as thrilling as a kicker battle, which we were all treated to last year briefly when Jake Moody and Greg Joseph competed for the starting role. Remember the beat writers sharing how many kicks each guy made per day during practice?
Thrilling times.
A punter battle is not that same, but it will still be important. The Niners are going to have to replace veteran Thomas Morstead, who was very solid last season, even if he did go a while without having to punt, thanks to San Francisco’s offense getting red-hot.
Waitman figures to have the upper hand as of right now. He’s got NFL experience and he’s a lefty kicker, which coaches always like because of the unique spin that they put on the ball making it harder for punt returners to hold onto it.
He averaged 45.5 yards per punt last season and pinned opponents in their own 20-yard line nearly 42-percent of the time. He’s solid, reliable, and a fairly known quantity.
Bouwmeester is the wild card as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Texas, and previously, the University of Utah. He averaged 44.5 yards per punt with the Longhorns and 43.6 yards per punt with the Utes. There’s a bit more intrigue since he’s from Australia and is working to get his visa approved. The Niners had pretty good luck with Australian Mitch Wishnowsky as their punter, so maybe they can get lucky down under yet again.
Punters don’t get a lot of love, but they’re obviously an integral part of the game. No matter how good a team’s offense is, there are going to be games where it can’t get anything going, offensively, and it needs the punter to bail the crop out a bit.
The Niners were spoiled by Andy Lee back in the day with his big leg. He played on some very bad teams and got to show it off a lot, so the Niners will be hoping either Waitman or Bouwmeester isn’t called upon that often.
Special teams had a marked turnaround last year under special teams coordinator Brant Boyer. San Francisco lost its punter and primary kick/punt returner from last year, though, so it will be interesting to see if there is a major drop off in either area, or if Boyer can keep up the momentum from last season.
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