HOUSTON – As Texans rookie Jack Stonehouse started hitting his first NFL punts, he made a lot of noise with the thud sound as the football ricocheted off his foot.
An All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection at Syracuse who averaged a school-record 47.1 yards per punt last season, Stonehouse is competing with former New Orleans Saints starting punter Kai Kroeger for the starting job and accompanying roster spot.
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“For Jack,we saw a guy that’s very consistent,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said of Stonehouse, the third-highest graded punter in the nation last year. “He has a very strong leg. He does a great job of booting the ball. He had a really good first day today. You can hear the ball coming off his foot. That’s the thing that stood out about him today.”
Stonehouse, whose father and cousin played in the NFL, had a long punt of 64 yards, with six touchbacks, and 25 fair catches. He set a school career record with a 45.8 yards per punt average.
Stonehouse went to the NFL scouting combine and East-West Shrine Bowl. He participated in the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers’ local prospect days and met privately with the San Francisco 49ers. A Missouri transfer, his average hang time was 4.29 seconds, fourth in the nation.
A former undrafted free agent from South Carolina where he was an All-American selection and All-Southeastern Conference selection, Kroeger averaged 44.8 yards for the Saints. He had 18 punts land inside opponents’ 20-yard lines. He had two blocked punts, impacting his average.
“Having that healthy competition is only going to make that position better when it comes to the punter position,” Ryans said. “We’ve got Kai Kai’s done it in the league and now adding Jack is going to be really healthy competition coming through training camp.”
Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com