Jon is going to suprise as the new Pack Punter.
He can kick in the cold and wind.... He can place the ball.
It is a good thing, and he is young.
From the Canadian Press.....
In just his second season in 2005, Ryan shattered the all-time
single-season record with an average punt of 50.6 yards — bettering the mark of 50.2 established 22 years ago by British Columbia Lions’ Hall-of-Famer Lui Passaglia.
Nobody else has ever come close to 50 yards per punt since records started to be kept in 1950. Joe Zuger of the Hamilton Tigers, who held the record until Passaglia’s magic 1983 season, average 48.5 yards in 1971. That bettered his own mark of 48.4 set three years earlier. Hank Ilesic of the Toronto Argonauts also had a 48.5-yard average in 1986.
Although Ryan, a native of Regina, missed the Bombers’ final game this season with an injury, he still led the CFL with 118 punts and 12 punt singles. Not surprisingly, he was a unanimous selection for the Western Division all-star team and a shoo-in to be the all-Canadian punter.
In just two seasons he has almost made Winnipeg fans forget the great Bob Cameron, his predecessor for the previous 23 seasons, holder of several CFL punting records, and a likely future candidate for the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
He also punted 118 times in his rookie season for a respectable 43.2 average, but he bettered that by more than seven yards in just one year. His net punting average also jumped by almost eight yards — from 34.6 to 42.3 — almost a full first-down difference every time he touched the ball.
Ryan came to the CFL with outstanding credentials. He joined the Rams in 2000, after just one year of high school ball, and helped them go all the way to the Vanier Cup in just their second season. He was second in the nation with a 42.8-yard average in 2002, his third of four years.
He led all Canadian university punters with a 45.9 average in his last year, 2003. In one game against the University of Calgary Dinos that season, he hoofed 10 punts for a 54.4-yard average.
Also a place-kicker in college, Ryan was ninth in Canada in scoring in 2003 with 70 points and was named the school’s most outstanding player. He was also selected a Canada West all-star and all-Canadian for the second consecutive year.