The Jaguars needed a new punter after Adam Podlesh signed with the Bears as a free agent, so they decided to be proactive about it.
Jacksonville selected Cal punter Bryan Anger with the seventh selection of the third round, number 70 overall, on Friday night in New York. The pick likely comes as a surprise to some, but no to Anger. He told the Bay Area News Group that he was “pretty much guaranteed” to get drafted, a pretty bold statement for a player at a position that saw one player selected last season.
Anger is in some pretty limited company. The last time a punter went in the third round of an NFL Draft was when the Chiefs took Dustin Colquitt with the 99th pick in 2005. The last time a punter went higher than Anger was when the Bears took Todd Sauerbrun with the 24th pick of the second round in 1995. Only four other punters have ever gone higher than the seventh pick of the third round.
So it’s an unusual move. Based on his production in college, it could also be a successful one. Anger had an average of 43.5 yards per punt over his career and put 90 kicks inside his opponent’s 20-yard line. Anger will need to put up those kinds of numbers in the NFL to stop people from thinking the Jaguars reached by taking him when they did.