Are the Eagles punting on a punter?

We are just a few days away from the Philadelphia Eagles’ preseason debut and training camp has been going about as well as it could for a reigning Super Bowl champion with an MVP caliber quarterback nursing a torn ACL.

New faces are quickly becoming acclimated with the team. The team’s top rookie is dropping jaws and not passes. No one’s bickering about their current contract situation. Everything’s going so well that it might be easy to forget one small, but vital, changing of the guard:

Who the hell is gonna punt???

When Donnie Jones decided to take his Super Bowl ring and ride off into the sunset, he left a pretty big hole in one of the league’s best special teams units. It’s not like franchise-greats grow on trees, even at the punter position.

As of right now, the Eagles only have one punter on their roster, Sav Rocca 2.0, Cameron Johnston. I call him that because he’s Australian and I’m not sure if he’s actually going to be any good.

The undrafted free agent out of Ohio State, and former first team All-American, was a training camp invite last season and served as friendly competition to Jones. While he didn’t warrant a spot on the roster, he preformed well when he had his name called averaging 44.9 yards on 15 punts with one touchback and three punts landing inside the 20 last preseason. According to Zach Berman, special teams coach, Dave Fipp, feels confident about Johnston moving forward, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still have an eye on outside help, just in case Johnston falters.

So far through training camp, Johnston’s been a bit of a mixed bag. Nick Fierro reported that he’s looked promising on his own, hanging punts in the air during individual drills, but has suffered from stretches of shanks during special teams drills. This is all without taking holds on place kicks into consideration, an underrated aspect of the punter position, and one Johnston struggled with last preseason.

Johnston is someone Im going to be keeping a close eye on during Thursday’s preseason opener and Im sure Donnie Jones will be doing the same. In the event Johnston does struggle, a reunion with last year’s punter doesn’t seem out of the question.

Hell, if the team feels so inclined, they could always just go for it on every fourth down. I mean, it worked pretty well in the Super Bowl after all.