How Packers punter Daniel Whelan’s big leg is tied to an adjustment in his mentality
GREEN BAY — Given his offensive background, you'd think Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur would never want to see punter Daniel Whelan on the field.
But you'd be wrong.
"Sure we do. Absolutely," LaFleur said earlier this week, getting ready to launch into his best dad-joke mode. "I want to see him hold for as many PATs as possible.
"That's what I tell him all the time. 'I hope we don't use you today other than on PAT.'"
Asked if he rolled his eyes at LaFleur's corny extra-point zinger, the 25-year-old Whelan insisted he does not.
"I like it. I don't mind," he said. "I love getting points, too."
Without starting quarterback Jordan Love in last Sunday's win over the Indianapolis Colts, points were at a premium. So, while Whelan came onto the field to hold for four field goals (three of which were successful) and for one extra point, it was his punting that tilted the field — and flipped it — in the Packers' favor.
And so, while Whelan did not get a game ball in the aftermath of Sunday's gritty win — backup quarterback Malik Willis, who filled in for Love and masterfully directed the Green Bay Packers' heavy-on-the-run offensive game plan, was the only one who got one of those.
But LaFleur did make sure that he gave Whelan an enthusiastic — and well-deserved — shout-out in his postgame speech to the team inside the victorious home locker room at Lambeau Field.
"When you have a guy that can flip the field, that's a real weapon," LaFleur called Whelan as the Packers prepped for this Sunday's game against the Tennessee Titans and Nissan Stadium in Nashville — another potentially low-scoring game if Love doesn't get cleared to play.
"He's a guy that we were really encouraged about a year ago, and you just continue to see the work that he's put in, how serious he is about his craft, and he continues to get better and better and better."
Whelan, who won the punting job in camp last year over longtime NFL veteran Pat O'Donnell, punted three times on Sunday and with his gravity-defying hangtime, none of the three were returned.
Heading into this Sunday's game against the Titans, he has punted five times on the year and is averaging 42.6 yards per punt. None of his punts have been returned, three have been fair caught, four have ended up inside the opponents' 20-yard line and two have gone out of bounds.
"Talking with Pat early on when Danny got here, he was like, 'This kid's got IT,'" long-snapper Matt Orzech. "The talent jumped out right away, especially to Pat.
"I mean, there's no ceiling on Danny. That's for sure. His raw ability is up there with the best I've ever seen. It's really just a matter of sustaining it, eliminating bad decision-making and controlling the game the way he can, choosing his spots to hit that big ball and manipulate the returner. There's no ceiling on him, for sure."
Against the Colts, Whelan had an Aussie-style punt that traveled 42 yards and went out of bounds at the Indianapolis 8-yard line; he boomed a 59-yarder in the third quarter that left the Colts at their own 16; and he pinned the Colts at their own 5-yard line for their final possession with a perfectly-placed 38-yarder with 43 seconds to go in the game.
"When you look at the times that we had to use him, the first punt was inside the 10, the second punt flipped the entire field — it was a 59-yarder with unbelievable hangtime — and then the last one, to pin the guy down on the 5-yard line," LaFleur said. "You couldn't ask for anything more than that."
The Packers picked Whelan up last year after a strong spring season in the XFL to compete with O'Donnell, signing the Ireland-born former University of California-Davis punter based on his potential.
By camp's end, he'd won the job over O'Donnell, a 10-year veteran who'd been the Packers' punter the previous season.
And since then, Whelan has only gotten better.
"He's really worked extremely hard at his craft, not only in season what he's done over the last year and a half with us, but what he's done in the off-season to perfect his drop and his hang and his ability to direct to the football," special-teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia said Thursday. "We're excited about the direction he's going."
For his part, Whelan seemed uncomfortable with the throng of reporters who surrounded him at his locker earlier this week. He didn't seem to love being called an "impact player" and didn't want to get too caught up in LaFleur's postgame praise.
"It's nice to hear, but you can't let it go to your head," he said. "I've just got to keep going, be the best player I can be."
Although Whelan spent his first NFL offseason gaining strength through dietary changes, weight workouts and having "punted a lot," he said the key to becoming that player is mental, not physical.
For as solid as his punting might have been last season, when he averaged 46.2 gross yards and 39.7 net yards on 57 punts, with 18 punts inside the 20 and 22 punts of 50-plus yards, Whelan confessed this week that his confidence — or lack thereof — was an issue.
If he was experiencing imposter syndrome, he has conquered that demon. And the results speak for themselves.
"I'd just say I'm more confident in-game in all aspects, confident in what I set out to do," Whelan explained. "Like, I have a plan before I go out there instead of just letting the moment get to me. I just conquer the moment, basically.
"I was nervous every time (I punted). So, I tried to eliminate that, try to be confident all around."
