Did you know there have only been 10 punters drafted in the fourth round or earlier of the NFL draft since the year 2000? Bucs punter Jake Camarda joined that illustrious group this year when he was selected 133rd overall.

Camarda, was viewed as a good prospect coming out of Georgia. While he didn’t have the biggest leg in the class, he certainly had enough leg to be successful at the NFL level. The element of his game that was most intriguing was his ability to consistently pin teams back with his pin-deep abilities. We profiled him shortly after the draft here at Pewter Report.

Bucs P Jake Camarda – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

But when a team sinks the kind of resources the Bucs did (an early Day 3 pick!) into a position that is very low on the value chart the player had better show elite results to justify that cost. And through his first five games as a pro Camarda … hasn’t.

Currently, Camarda ranks 27th in the NFL in expected points added per punt according to the punter-focused site Puntalytics. As a matter of fact, by their measurements each time Camarda punts the Bucs’ expected points added goes down by eight hundredths of a point.

To add insult to injury, last year’s punter Bradley Pinion, now seemingly recovered from a hip injury he dealt with last year, ranks fifth in the league by the same metric.

How has Camarda struggled this season? I have tried to document his performance on a week-by-week basis throughout the start of the season. Most weeks, Camarda’s day has comprised of an overall solid outing, save for one bad play. Those single bad plays would tank his results since his body of work is so small.

In Week 2 it was a shanked 26-yarder. In Week 3 it was a short punt on a deep opportunity. He also has had a kickoff go out of bounds.

Then last week it looked like he turned a corner on the surface. No botched kickoffs. He averaged nearly 50 yards on his four punts for the day. He even had a long of 65 that went for a touchback. But if you peel back the onion you will see it’s not quite that way.

Bucs Camarda May Be Struggling With Directional Punts

I’ve got two clips for you from the Bucs game against the Falcons game. Both show that Camarda may be hanging his coverage unit out to dry.

This was the aforementioned 65-yarder. Big punt, right? Unlucky bounce at about the 18 and it carried into the end zone. But where was the Bucs coverage unit?

I’ll refer you back to the beginning of the punt. Watch gunner Zyon McCollum at the bottom of your screen. See how he bends to the opposite hash as he heads down field. That, combined with the straight-line that Sean Murphy-Bunting takes at the top of the screen, leads me to believe that Camarda was supposed to punt to the opposite side of the field. Had he done that Murphy-Bunting and McCollum would have had a better opportunity to down the ball before it went into the end zone for a touchback.

It happened again later in the game leading to a big return for the Falcons.

This looks like it should be a punt outside the numbers to Camarda’s right. But he puts it right down main street. The coverage unit has to try and adjust but can’t in time. A lane forms and returner Avery Williams gets a decent chunk of yardage.

Camarda has a ton of talent. He has shown a level of touch that can help induce short kickoff returns. That same touch has helped him place almost 1/3 of his punts inside his opponent’s 20-yard line.

Camarda has shown he can boom a long punt. He has shown elite hangtime, ranking fourth in the league in that metric at an average of 4.66 seconds per punt. The tools are there. I get it.

But as soon as the Bucs invested that fourth-round pick on him, the expectations for Camarda became Top 5-10 punter in the league. And until he can show more consistency on executing what needs to be done in each individual situation he will not ascend to that level.