Silver And Black Pride
There was a time where the punter was the best player in Silver & Black, any given Sunday.
We’re not in those dire times, though.
While the win-loss record most definitely needs work, the roster is not as barren as previous incarnations. Thus, punter AJ Cole III isn’t the best player the Las Vegas Raiders showcase. But that’s not to diminish the 29-year-old North Carolina State product’s impact.
Far from it.
Cole is an elite player at his position group and is a strategic field-flipping punter who sends the ball into orbit and deep into opponent’s territory, putting pressure on the other team. At 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, the undrafted free agent who enters his seventh season in the NFL generates the power and has the accuracy to blast and place the ball. His consistency earned Cole a four-year, $15.8 million contract extension in late May that locks him in Las Vegas for the next five seasons.
By The Numbers
AJ Cole III, Punter, 7th year
With long-term contractual security in hand, Cole is slated to be a weapon on special teams once more. The two-time NFL All-Pro first-teamer (2021 and 2023) and three-time Pro Bowler is in his first offseason under the new Pete Carroll and John Spytek regime. Cole and fellow place kicker Daniel Carlson and long snapper Jacob Bobenmoyer form a consistent kicking battery for special teams coach Tom McMahon — one of the few remaining coaches that returned during a coaching change.
While Cole may be 29, punters tend to have long careers deep into their 30s — former Raiders punter Shane Lechler sported Silver & Black at age 36 in 2012 and then spent five more seasons with the Houston Texans before retiring at age 41 — for example. Despite leading the league in punting with a 50.0 average per boot in 2021 and having a career high 50.8 figure this past season, McMahon is impressed with the drive Cole brings this offseason.
“I’ll tell you what I think. I think he’s really doing a good job of getting that ball outside
the red line. He’s giving us a rectangle that’s very, very small, and that’s important to him. He wants to
punt the ball to the gunners,” the Raiders special team’s boss explained when asked what Cole is doing to better himself. “You guys have heard me say a squared plus b squared is c squared. Let him punt the C squared and let us run the A squared. He’s bought into that, and he always has, but he’s getting better and better. He’s a...
