By all accounts, Jets punter Thomas Morstead is loved and respected by his teammates.
When you look at what he’s accomplished so far in his career, few Jets players have had as long a tenure as Morstead.
That being said, for the Jets to be successful in 2024, Morstead will need to punt significantly less than he did in 2023, when he punted 99 times, the most in the NFL and tied for the most in Jets history last season.
Last year, the Jets’ best hope of scoring was for Morstead to punt inside the 5-yard line and the defense to get a safety. It’s good to have a good punter, but it’s not so good to rely on him as a source of points.
Everyone expects the Jets to be much more effective offense this season. With quarterback Aaron Rodgers healthy and surrounded by Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall and Mike Williams behind a rebuilt offensive line, the offense should be explosive.
There are many ways to measure that success.
One is whether Morstead is on the sideline often.
“We love Thomas, but we love watching Thomas play football,” Jets head coach Robert Saleh said Friday when the premise was explained to him.
Morstead, one of the friendliest NFL players you’ll ever meet, didn’t entirely agree with the idea that the Jets would be better off in the witness protection program.
“I don’t agree with that,” Morstead said. “I always tell our offensive linemen that if every drive ended with a special teams play, we would win every game. If we kicked an extra point, a field goal or a punt and didn’t have any turnovers, we would win every game.”
Morstead acknowledged that if he doesn’t approach 100 punts this year, it would be a positive.
“Generally speaking, fewer punts would be a good thing,” Morstead said. “Aaron is traditionally the record holder for touchdown-to-interception ratio. Of course, if he plays and he’s healthy and he’s that efficient, we’ll see fewer punts, which would be a good thing.”
Morstead may have been the Jets’ most consistent player last season. His 99 punts were a career high. “Pretty much,” Morstead said correctly. His previous high was 74 with the Saints in 2012. Morstead had punted fewer than 60 times in a season for most of his career. Having Drew Brees at quarterback helped.
His total of 99 last year was 15 shy of the record of 114 held by Bob Parsons of the Bears in 1981 and Chad Stanley of the Texans in 2002. In one game during the famous Zach Wilson-Tommy DeVito showdown with the Giants, Morstead punted 11 times.
His best game came against the Chiefs, when with the Jets trailing 17-0 early in the second quarter, Morstead completed a 49-yard punt that pinned Kansas City at the 4-yard line. Three plays later, the Jets defense got a safety that changed the course of the game.
“When we weren’t doing well as a team and he pushed us inside the 5-yard line and the defense got away with a safety … it changed the game for Kansas City,” Saleh said. “The numbers just flipped. That fired us up.”
Morstead did it again the next week in Denver, pushing the Broncos inside the five-yard line for a safety. Punts like this earned him the respect and trust of his teammates.
“When you have a guy like me who punts, paired with a defense that has special players and makes special plays, there’s a synergy,” Morstead said. “It just highlights how valuable my play is and the play of our punting team. It also highlights how good our defense is, but the defense has to get in those situations first. Coach Saleh told me that if the ball is five yards or inside, they think they can score. That’s their mindset. They’re going for it. It’s awesome. It’s nice to be recognized.”
The Jets were so impressed with Morstead that they re-signed him to a two-year contract worth more than $5 million in March.
It’s clear that the Jets like Morstead, they just want to avoid seeing too much of him on the field this year.
