The punt exploded off Jordan Stout’s foot, soared through the air and turned over just as Stout hoped it would. The ball carried beyond New York Jets punt returner Isaiah Williams, bounced at the 5-yard line and took a hard right turn out of bounds.
Some 70 yards away, Stout turned to the roaring M&T Bank Stadium crowd, raised his hands and drank in the applause.
It’s not often that a punter gets such a moment, but Stout has been a consistent bright spot in a season rife with disappointment, and he could end the season with his first Pro Bowl nod.
After spending a couple of years trying to kick his way out of the lengthy shadow of franchise legend Sam Koch, Stout is enjoying the best season of his four-year career, and the pending free agent will be getting a nice raise sometime soon — in Baltimore or elsewhere.
As of early December, Stout ranked third in the league in punting average (51.3) and led the league in net punting average (45.5), which accounts for return yardage. He is on pace to set Ravens single-season records in both categories.
And Stout’s 67-yarder that bounced out at the 5-yard line wasn’t even his longest kick against the Jets in November; earlier, he had boomed a 74-yarder that tied the record for the longest punt in team history.
“It kind of feels like this is four years of work that’s finally paying off,” Stout said. “I just feel like it’s all clicking.”
Koch’s Protégé
Viewed as one of the best punters in the 2022 draft class coming out of Penn State, Stout became the first punter drafted that year when the Ravens selected him in the fourth round.
That was the signal that the Ravens would be moving on from Koch, who played in more games (256) than anyone else in team history.
Stout was solid but not spectacular as a rookie. He averaged 45.9 yards a punt, about a yard below the league average and had the third-highest touchback percentage.
Stout acknowledged the burden of trying to replace a franchise icon, but he says now that one of the biggest factors in his development was that Koch stuck around as a special teams consultant. (He left that role after last season.)
“He helped me a ton throughout this journey,” Stout said. “It would have been a lot harder if he wasn’t around teaching me the things he knew, the way he played and how his thought process worked.”
Ravens kicker Tyler Loop also knows a thing or two about replacing a franchise legend, and he said reputation grows over time. As it did with Koch, so it can with Stout.
“Justin Tucker wasn’t always Justin Tucker,” Loop said. “You don’t just step in [as] a Hall of Famer. That’s something that he became. Same with Sam Koch. That’s a large body of work, a lot of long-term success. It takes time.
“You just have to keep stacking good years and put in the work,” Loop continued. “It’s not easy to do what they’ve done, but it is easy to step in and understand … ‘Hey, I can put in that work. I can do that.’ Jordan is doing that.”
Stout said Koch was especially helpful late last season, when Stout stumbled through what he described as “a bad last five games.”
Stout cautions against leaning too much into statistics — a 46-yard punt is better than a 66-yard if kicked from midfield — but he averaged 43.1 yards throughout those five games, with three touchbacks in his last eight kicks.
“[Koch] being there for me was what got me through” that rough patch, Stout said, “and is part of why I’m having a great year this year.”
Ravens special teams coordinator Chris Horton said Stout is constantly refining his technique, and in the offseason, Stout trained with other punters at a kicking academy run by former NFL (and Maryland) kicker Nick Novak in San Diego.
That offseason work helped him add the “boomerang punt,” another from Koch’s bag of tricks, to his arsenal.
Stout explained that the key with the boomerang punt is to rotate the nose of the ball before kicking it, and if done correctly, the ball coming down resembles the seed pods from maple trees that spin to the ground like a helicopter rotor. That can flummox even the best punt returner.
That points to another factor in his success this year.
“I’ve seen a lot of growth in his maturity, raising his attention to detail when it comes to the little stuff,” said Nick Moore, Stout’s long snapper throughout his Ravens career. “It’s not necessarily the flashy stuff, but it’s the stuff that produces the most consistent results. He’s really taken ownership of that this year and gotten his confidence back.”
Moore has also praised Stout’s impact as a holder on kicks, a thankless position that gets no attention until something goes wrong.
“It’s half the job,” Stout said.
And speaking of Koch’s shadow, Stout had to follow the player that former Ravens special teams coordinator Jerry Rosburg had called “the best holder in the history of football.”
Stout had not done much holding at Penn State because he also kicked field goals, but Moore said the athletic Stout “has become an outstanding holder.”
Free Agency Looming
Stout’s career year is coming at the perfect time for him, as he’s in the final year of his rookie deal and figures to sign a new, lucrative deal by next spring. Will that be in Baltimore?
Stout is one of roughly 20 pending free agents — a list that was reduced by one with the re-signing of tight end Mark Andrews in early December — and the team also must wrestle with quarterback Lamar Jackson’s contract; his cap hit for 2026 is set to soar to more than $74 million, a number that will require reworking.
General manager Eric DeCosta will have some tough decisions to make.
Stout has a base salary of $1.1 million this year in the final season of his four-year, $4.3 million rookie deal, according to overthecap.com, which tracks player contracts.
Michael Dickson of the Seattle Seahawks and Logan Cooke of the Jacksonville Jaguars each signed extensions this past June with an average annual value of at least $4 million. Dickson, a former first-team All-Pro, set the market for punters when he signed a four-year, $16.2 million extension.
Stout acknowledged the contract situation was on his mind this past summer, but, he said, “Now, it’s easy to say when everything’s going right, I don’t think about it too much. I have such a good foundation at this point that I feel I can go out there and have five bad punts and I’m gonna be OK. Then that gives you the freedom to have four good punts.”
Stout, though, does recall Ravens senior special teams coach Randy Brown playfully — or not — reminding him of the stakes.
“It’s a contract year, right?” Stout said. “Randy Brown tells me, ‘If you do poorly, we’re gonna cut you. If you do OK, we’ll re-sign you, and if you do too well … I’m going to leave that part out.'”
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox
Issue 296: December 2025 / January 2026
Originally published Dec. 17, 2025