Raiders All-Time Top Five: Punters

2. Shane Lechler, 2000-2012

If anybody ever came close to Ray Guy for the Raiders, it was Lechler, but he was not a first-round pick, being selected in the fifth round (No. 142 overall) of the 2000 NFL Draft out of Texas A&M. The Raiders knew what they had in his first game, and season, as a rookie as he had a season-high 10 punts in his first game for an average of 42.4 yards and helped the Silver and Black hold on for a 9-6 victory over the San Diego Chargers. During Week 10 against the Kansas City Chiefs, he was pressed into duty as a placekicker and kicked seven extra points in a 49-31 victory. Two weeks later against the New Orleans Saints, Lechler had four punts for 219 yards and a season-high 54.75 average as the Raiders won, 31-22. He finished his rookie season with 65 punts for 2,984 yards and a 45.91 average. Lechler made his playoff debut in the 2000 wild card round against the Miami Dolphins and had five puts for a 46.8 yard average in a 27–0 victory, and a week later he had seven punts for a 45-yard average in a 16-3 loss to the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game. Lechler improved to a 46.2-yard average in his second season and simply kept getting better. In his 10th season with the Raiders in 2009, he averaged a career-high 51.1 yards per punt and two years later he got off the longest punt of his career, an 80-yarder. Lechler was named All-Pro nine times, made seven Pro Bowls, led the NFL in punting average five times, and is the NFL's all-time leader in career punting average at 47.6 yards. He had at least one punt of 50 yards or more in 33 consecutive games from Week 13 of 2003 through Week 14 of 2005, the longest streak by any player since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970. Lechler’s 51.1-yard average per punt in 2009 is second only to Sammy Baugh’s mark of 51.4 in 1940. Lechler became a free agent in 2013 and signed a three-year contract with the Houston Texans, and averaged at least 46.3-yard average per punt in five seasons with them, topped by a 51.0 average in 2017, his final season. He finished his career with 1,444 punts for 68,678 yards and an NFL record 47.6-yard average, having only five kicks blocked in 18 seasons. After sitting out the 2018 season when he was beaten out by rookie Trevor Daniel, Lechler officially announced his retirement on March 30, 2019. Lechler was selected to the NFL 2000s All-Decade Team, the NFL 2010s All-Decade Team and the NFL 100th Anniversary Team. He will be eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame next year and should be a shoo-in, but you never know when it comes to Raiders. “This man is the greatest punter to ever walk the earth, but even more than that, he is one of the best people to ever walk this earth,” Texans teammate J.J. Watt said. “ … We’ll do it all again in a few years when they’re putting that gold jacket on you (at the Hall of Fame).”

3. Marquette King, 2012-2018

The Raiders signed King to a free agent contract after he went undrafted in the 2012 NFL Draft out of Fort Valley State in his native Georgia, but he spent his rookie season on injured reserve. However, when All-Pro punter Shane Lechler left the Silver and Black a year later to sign with the Houston Texans, King stepped in and stepped up after beating out veteran Chris Kluwe during training camp. The 6-foot, 190-pound King led the NFL with a punting average of 48.9 yards in 2013 and one of his kicks went for 66 yards. He was even better the next season, leading the NFL with 4,930 total yards punting for a league-leading 48.9 average, both Raiders single-season records. In his six seasons with the Raiders, King punted 426 times for 19,941 yards, a team-record 46.8-yard average with a long kick of 72 yards, in addition to pinning opponents inside the 20-yard-line on 156 occasions while having only three punts blocked. The fourth-leading punter in franchise history, he was selected second-team All-Pro in 2016. During a 2016 game against the Atlanta Falcons, King was fined $18,231 for making a horse-collar tackle on Eric Weems, but the Raiders didn’t mind that much because he made a touchdown-saving tackle on the play. When the Raiders released King in 2018, he signed a free-agent contract with the Denver Broncos, but punted only 20 times in four games, averaging 44.1 yards per kick, before sustaining a thigh injury that put him on the Injured Reserve List, and two days later he reached an injury settlement with the team and was released.

King was selected by the St. Louis Battlehawks in the 2020 XFL Supplemental Draft and punted 19 times for 868 yards, a 45.7-yard average, in five games but had his contract terminated when the league suspended operations on April 10, 2020. King went to Fort Valley State as a wide receiver before becoming the full-time punter, and in 2011 was selected the All-Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference first team after averaging 43 yards per punt, including an 80-yarder in a game against Bethune-Cookman, one of his 16 kicks that went for 50 yards or more. He was selected as Fort Valley State’s Most Valuable Player that season and went on to play in the 2012 NFLPA Collegiate Bowl. During his career, King became known for his attention-grabbing celebrations and dances following successful punts.

4. Jeff Gossett, 1988-1996

The Raiders were the sixth team Gossett was within his NFL career, joining them in 1988 at the age of 31, and in eight seasons he went on to become the third-leading punter in franchise history with 26,474 yards on 642 punts, a 41.7-yard average, with a long of 65 yards. He pinned opponents inside the 20-yard-line on 180 of those kicks and had only three blocked. Gossett averaged a career-high 44.2 yards per punt in 1991 when he was selected first-team All-Pro, played in the Pro Bowl and received the Golden Toe Award from Pro Football Weekly. Gossett was the oldest punter in the NFL at the age of 39 in 1996, of course not close to George Blanda’s record 48, and he retired after that season.

In 212 games during his 15-year NFL career, Gossett punted 982 times in 212 games for 40,569 yards, a 41.3-yard average, with nine kicks that went for more than 60 yards or more—including a 64-yarder in his final season. Gossett was signed by the Dallas Cowboys as an undrafted free agent out of Eastern Illinois in 1980 but didn’t play in any regular-season games for the Cowboys or for the San Diego Chargers the following year. He finally got a chance in 1981 with the Kansas City Chiefs and had a net average punt of 39.3 yards, before increasing that to 41.4 the following season. Gossett also punted for the Cleveland Browns in 1983 and 1985-86, and for the Houston Oilers in 1987 before joining the Raiders. In addition, he punted in the United States Football League for the Chicago Blitz in 1984, punting for a 42.4-yard average with a long of 60 in 18 games, and the Portland Breakers in 1985, averaging 42.2 yards with a long of 56 in another 18 games. Gossett also was a baseball star at Eastern Illinois and was drafted in the fifth round of the 1979 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft in June by the New York Mets and played two seasons in their farm system as an outfielder and third baseman. Gossett batted .254 with four home runs, four triples, 12 doubles, and 36 runs batted in for Little Falls of the New York-Penn League in 1978, and hit .254 with 13 homers, two triples, 25 doubles, and 53 RBIs for Lynchburg of the Carolina League in 1979, before turning his attention completely to football and punting.

5. AJ Cole, 2019-Present

Cole has shown enough in his first two seasons with the Raiders that he might soon be moving up this list. The 6-4, 220-pound Cole signed with the Silver and Black as an undrafted free agent out of North Carolina State in 2019 after participating in a rookie camp and beat out incumbent punter Johnny Townsend during training camp. “I think Townsend has got his hands full with AJ Cole,” Coach Jon Gruden said early in 2019 training camp. “We haven’t seen kicks like that since Shane Lechler was here or Marquette King.” In his first game in September of 2019 against the Denver Broncos, he immediately showed his stuff by punting three times for 134 yards, a 44.7 average, but he only got better. Cole played in all 16 games as a rookie and punted 67 times for 3.081 yards, a 46.0-yard average, with a long of 74, while pinning opponents inside the 20-yard-line 33 times—all Raiders rookie records. He came back last season and punted 44 times for 1,939 yards, a 44.1-yard average, with a long of 63 yards, and 20 kicks inside the 20. That’s 111 punts for 5,020 yards and a 45.2-yard average with 53 going inside the 20, and he has not yet had a punt blocked. In addition, his punts have resulted in only eight touchbacks, including two last season. Cole, who also holds for kicker-on-the-rise Daniel Carlson, already ranks ninth on the Raiders’ all-time punting list and it seems the sky is his limit. “There might be certain teams that don’t really care too much about the punter, but I feel that there’s a lot of fans out there that really are informed, and really care about the punter position because the Raiders have had the best in history at the position,” Cole said. “I’m just excited to have the opportunity to represent this organization week in and week out. … I take pride in being the last (punter) for the Oakland Raiders and the first (punter) for the Las Vegas Raiders.” Cole was the starting punter in all four of his seasons at North Carolina State, with 220 punts for 9,288 yards, a 42.2-yard average, including longs of 72 yards in three of his four seasons while having only two punts blocked. Only 59 of those 200 punts were returned. Cole punted for Woodward Academy in College Park, Ga., also playing basketball, and as a high was named to the All-Metro Area football team by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. At North Carolina State, he was a finalist for the Wuerfful Trophy as the best punter in the nation in his junior year and was a semifinalist for the award as a senior. In 2017 Cole, was awarded Honorable Mention All-American honors by GPR Analytics.