Masthay Gets Paid

After playing for the minimum the last couple of seasons, Tim Masthay received a contract extension worth a reported $5,465,000 over four years including a $1.2M signing bonus. That’s a reasonable contract paying him on average $1.37M/year which is about the league average for punters.
http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/masthay-stabilizes-packers-punting-situation-bi6bv1b-164970486.html

With Greg Jennings and TJ Lang’s contract expiring after this season and Masthay a couple of years away from UFA, I didn’t anticipate this extension but I like it. Masthay set the Packers’ records for gross and net punting average last season. The improved punt coverage unit deserves some credit as does Chris Bryan who lost out to Masthay in the competition before the 2010 season. Bryan “taught” Masthay the Australian style drop kick used to keep punts from going into the end zone for a touchback – or at least helped him refine it. But its Masthay working hard in the weight room and doing a good job of the directional punting Slocum schemes require.

IMO it represents Thompson learning a lesson from experience and perhaps another lesson from his mentor; Wolf has been quoted on more than one occasion saying his biggest mistake as GM was not signng P Craig Hentrich to a $1M/year extension in 1998. IMO Hentrich was a great punter and he was versatile enough to kick off as well. It was a long drought from Hentrich to Masthay with just a couple of noteworthy punters in between. The list includes Sean Landeta, Louie Aguiar, Chris Hanson, Josh Bidwell, Bryan Barker, BJ Sander, Ryan Flinn, Jon Ryan, Derrick Frost, and Jeremy Kapinos. Bidwell and Ryan are the noteworthy ones IMO and remember it was Thompson who made the mistake of letting Ryan go in favor of Frost.

Now both Masthay (through 2016) and Crosby (through 2015) are under contract for the next several years. That’s important not only because both are above average IMO but because Masthay holds for Crosby so they can spend all the time they need practicing (along with LS Goode whose contract expires after this season) without disrupting the backup QB’s (for example) practice schedule.

good for him

I hope this is how he feels

Visions of B.J Sanders and 17 yard punts off the side of his foot dance through my head...

I no longer shudder when Masthay goes back to punt.

Just saw that the Dolohins' punter signed a 4-yr $13M extension today. And we got our guy for about 1/3 of that. Nice job Ted!

Masthay is great because you cant think of any plays where he messed up.

this guy was really the MVP of the NFC championship game vs the bears....

he really nailed those punts and Hester couldn't do anything bout it

Its nice having a great punter, hope he lasts and stays long. You don't know how important the kicker is till you have a bad one

Pay the man all day if he can make us all forget what the punting game was like for what felt like a decade of garbage.