Dustin Colquitt, Jack Fox and a rare competition at punter for the Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs have provided some competition at punter for Dustin Colquitt for the first time in a very, very long time.

Dustin Colquitt hasn’t felt this sensation in a very long time. It’s the feeling of competition, literally the presence of someone else using his exact same position—punter—to describe the reason they are also on the roster of the Kansas City Chiefs.

If that sounds dramatic, it actually is. Every other player on the roster experiences the rush of competition every single year save for a couple key spots. Patrick Mahomes knows no one is going to take his job. Maybe a long snapper or other such position will know that he is safe. Other than that, every player knows that he must fight for his job again and again in the hopes of extending his NFL career.

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The Chiefs selected Colquitt in the third round of the 2005 NFL Draft. Typically the moment a team reaches for a punter before, say, the seventh round, it’s cause for laughter. There’s simply no need to take a specialist that early, especially when other needs could be filled. Fourteen seasons later, no one is laughing at the most tenured player on the team—a multi-year Pro Bowler who has been a fixture ever since his rookie season.

The last time the Chiefs had any competition at punter, YouTube was a brand new site and Hurricane Katrina would soon devastate the Gulf Coast. Local theaters played Batman Begins and Walk The Line and Kelly Clarkson dominated the charts with “Since U Been Gone.” The iPhone was still two years from being released.

In short, the world has changed a lot since Dustin Colquitt was cemented in place as the punter for the Chiefs. And as other specialists have come and gone, Colquitt has remained in place.

Here’s what makes the presence of Jack Fox (we’ll get to who he is) so insane. The Chiefs, according to roster tracking site Ourlads, have never had even another punter in place for the sake of competition in any offseason since 2007 (and that’s just when they started tracking). In other words, Fox might be the very first punter signed by the Chiefs since Colquitt. If there’s evidence of someone else, I can’t find it.

In that same time, the Chiefs have enjoyed a nice batch of kickers compared to other NFL teams who struggle mightily with special teams. Yet next to Colquitt on the timeline, it resembles a revolving door. The Chiefs have gone from Lawrence Tynes to Justin Medlock to John Carney to Dave Rayner to Steve Weatherford to Nick Novak to Connor Barth to Ryan Succop to Cairo Santos to Harrison Butker.

However, this year has something different. Two roster spots out of the allowed total of 90 are going to punters for the Chiefs. Something is clearly up.

The Chiefs seem like single worst place for a punter hoping to make the NFL, so the idea that his agent would steer him to K.C. after going undrafted seems like an odd play. Does that mean that general manager Brett Veach told him that there was a legitimate competition to be had? Does that mean Colquitt is a potential cut? Is there a plan to pass the torch slowly, so to speak, as Fox perhaps spends the year on the practice squad?

Why would the Chiefs bother with this? The reality is that Fox is a nice prospect. The 6’2, 213 lb. kicker out of Rice has plenty of experience with 211 punts in Conference USA play over the last three years for the Owls. This season, his punts averaged 45.5 yards/punt—a total that increased significantly each season from 40.7 during his sophomore year.

Fox also has a big leg capable of lots of touchbacks and he had plenty of kicking experience in high school and at Rice as well, so it’s possible teams would like his versatility and experience at both kicking positions. The Chiefs have Harrison Butker locked up with a nice new extension, so there’s no chance of any competition for field goals, but perhaps Fox could be seen as a kickoff specialist to go with his role as punter—if that’s indeed what’s happening here.

Yet here’s the rub. Even after 222 games and 1,076 punts in the regular season, the 37-year-old Colquitt shows no signs of slowing down. He signed a new three-year deal just one offseason ago with Brett Veach, so it’s not as if Veach is looking to replace John Dorsey‘s guy. Colquitt averaged 44.9 yards/punt in 2018, just a shade off of his average the last two years and equal to his career mark exactly.

Is Dave Toub just wanting Veach to bring in a kid for a closer look in case something goes wrong? Are the Chiefs planning to make a move, whether sooner or later, and want to have the pieces in place? Are they wanting to push Colquitt with the same fires of competition everyone else has to face? Colquitt, who just won the team’s Walter Payton award for community service, is a model teammate, so it seems odd that he could be a preseason cut.

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No matter the reason, it’s an odd sight to see two punters on the same roster, at least for the Chiefs. It’s been a very long time since the last real punting competition—and we’re not even sure how real this one is.

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