The 90 to 1 Green Bay Packers roster countdown: No. 35

The Green Bay Packers, and their 90 players on the roster, are in the midst of their first training camp under coach Matt LaFleur. In an annual tradition from my 11 years at Packer Report, I rank the players in order of importance from No. 90 to No. 1. This isn’t just a listing of the team’s best players. Our rankings take into account talent, importance of the position, depth at the position, salary and draft history. More than the ranking, we hope you learn something about each player. (Note: The start of this series can be found with my former employer.)

No. 35: P JK Scott ($624,388 cap)

On the surface, Scott had a dismal rookie season. Last year, 32 punters had at least 32 kicks. Scott, the fifth-round pick who routinely hit bombs on the practice field during training camp, ranked 23rd in that group with a 44.7-yard average and tied for 26th with a 38.8-yard net average. Making matters worse, the man Scott replaced was Justin Vogel, who finished seventh with a team-record net average of 41.6 yards in 2017.

However, the stats don’t always tell the full story. According to Pro Football Focus, his average hang time of 4.52 seconds was No. 1 in the league, his 27 fair catches were second and his opponent return rate of 28.2 percent was fourth. So, Scott hit the mark in three key categories that should give him the potential to take a big Year 2 leap forward.

“He’s obviously got a lot of talent,” new special teams coordinator Shawn Mennenga said.

Where Scott needs to improve is his situational kicking. Scott hit 19 punts inside the 20-yard line vs. a league-worst nine touchbacks. That 2.1-to-1 ratio was by far the worst in the NFL. The league average was about 6.0. Again, looking back to 2017, Vogel had 19 inside-the-20 punts vs. only two touchbacks.

“The going-in punts – limit the touchbacks and get more control there. That was one of my main goals this offseason and really worked on this offseason,” Scott said after a hot start to training camp. “And continue to work on consistency and ball placement. The thing about punting and any sport, really, is there’s always room to improve. Every practice, if you don’t have the mind-set of, ‘I’m going to work on this and improve here,’ I would say that’s not the best mentality. Every practice, that’s the way you’ve got to think. I can always improve here or there, I can be quicker, and things like that.”

Another target for Scott is surviving the grind of the season. Scott’s productivity dipped as the season progressed. During a nine-game stretch from Week 2 through Week 11, just eight of his 35 punts were returned. In his last six games, 11 of his 32 punts were returned. During that span, his net average was less than 40 yards in five of the six games.

That means working smarter, not harder.

“A lot of times, it’s doing less,” Scott said. “Sometimes, you get overtrained, and that’s where you get fatigued and fall off. A lot of maturing as an athlete is not overdoing it. That’s probably my main thing my whole life is I’ve always been a guy that wants to do more. Workout more and kick more. But that has an adverse effect on your body and ends up doing the opposite.”