Matt Araiza: Wikipedia| Tackles| NFL draft projection| Stats

Matt Ariza may be the most famous punter to ever enter the NFL draft at some point, but he clearly wasn’t the most valued by the NFL. Today we will discuss about Matt Araiza: Wikipedia| Tackles| NFL draft projection| Stats.

Matt Araiza: Wikipedia| Tackles| NFL draft projection| Stats

Matt Ariza (born May 16, 2000) is an American football player for the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL).

Wikipedia

Ariza grew up in San Diego, California and attended Rancho Bernardo High School, where she played soccer and was a handicap player on the track and field team. He scored 37 field goals and was a two-time All-America selection as a placekicker. Ariza committed to playing college football at San Diego State upon offers from UMass and Montana. 

Tackles

If, last summer, you asked Matt Ariza if he’d be sitting on this bench outside the NFL combine, he might have said no. After all, he only hit five punts in college before the 2021 season. He might have the same answer, even if you asked him 48 hours before the alliance, thanks to a stomach bug that delayed his arrival at the indie (he did it at Southern California staple In-N-Out Burger). Refusing to blame.) But he made it, and now he’s a week away from being drafted, something that only happens to two or three experts every year.

If a punting possibility can’t be considered, then Ariza is just that. And in a draft without an elite quarterback, an argument could be made that outside safety (Kyle Hamilton) and center (Tyler Linderbaum), Ariza is the best prospect with respect to the rest of his position group in the 2022 player pool.

Ariza is entering the NFL at a time when the ethos of what it takes to finish fourth is slowly changing. As with any elite prospect, a two-pronged question arises: Is he ready for the NFL? And, is this NFL ready for that? Sports Illustrated spoke to Ariza and more than a dozen people, from team officials to coaches to elite special teams coaches, about their draft prep, and how the game behind the 14-yard-tall Snapper turned pros from college. gets changed.

NFL draft projection

The NFL Draft doesn’t usually surprise us much when it comes to punting, but on Saturday it came with two big surprises.

The biggest surprise is that college football’s top punter, Matt Araiza, wasn’t the first punter off the board this year. The former San Diego State punter was not selected until the Bills made him the first pick of the sixth round (180th overall).

Although he was the top punting prospect in the draft, Ariza ended up as the third chosen punter. The first two punters went off the board in the fourth round, with the Ravens selecting Jordan Stout and the Buccaneers taking on Jake Camarda.

Those two picks were also somewhat surprising, if only because you almost never see two punters being taken early, with Stout going 130th overall and Camarda going three picks later, in this case. The year marked only the third time since 1993 that two punters were first taken. End of fourth round. This happened only for the second time in 1993 and 2007.

Stats