GREEN BAY – Daniel Whelan isn't always fair to himself.
To him, it doesn't matter if it's cold or a stiff breeze is blowing, he'll be upset if his punt isn't a boomer with at least a 5-second hang time, angled toward the sidelines. In other words, if it's not perfect.
"He's mad that he's not hitting the biggest ball ever," long snapper Matt Orzech said. "It's like, 'It's windy, and freezing, so it might not get the 5.0's all day'" …
"Or 50-yarder, outside the numbers," Whelan said, finishing Orzech's thought when told about it. "Yeah, I'll be mad."
But that annoying perfectionism isn't just a part of who Whelan is, it's part of how he became the NFL's leading punter.
Which is a level not previously reached in Green Bay. Whelan's 51.7-yard gross average in 2025 ranked first in the league and third for a single season in NFL history.
No Packers punter had captured that top statistical spot since the 1970 league merger, and he shattered Corey Bojorquez's single-season franchise record by more than five yards (46.5 in 2021). He hit 32 of his 49 punts 50-plus yards, and 12 of them 60-plus.
The number he really cares about, the net (gross punt distance minus return yards) was plenty good, too. His 43.9-yard average there also broke the team record set by Justin Vogel in 2017 (41.6).
It's not as though his first two pro seasons screamed for improvement, either. His gross averages of 46.2 and 46.1 in 2023 and '24 ranked second and third in team history before last season, and his nets (39.7, 40.2) were top 10.
But to understand Whelan's career trajectory is to remember how he became the Packers punter in the first place.
"I always said I could," Whelan said. "I've worked really hard to get where I'm at. It's not just dumb luck. I've been as low as you can get in life, and I just kept going."
That low point came in 2022, when he was released by the Saints as an undrafted rookie before training camp even started. He went home to California – where he moved from his native Ireland at age 13, started punting as a high school junior at 17 at the urging of a coach impressed by his rugby and soccer skills, and then played five seasons for UC-Davis – and started putting in some really long days.
He'd wake up at 4:30 a.m. to work at a spa, folding towels for eight hours a day, before working out and punting in the evenings.
"That was super fun," he deadpanned about the spa gig. "I was like, OK, do I want to do this for the rest of my life, or do I want to be a punter in the NFL? So I flipped the switch and … yeah."
Crediting his work ethic and never-quit attitude to his parents, he took another crack at pro football with the D.C. Defenders of the XFL in the spring of 2023, and modest success there earned him a shot with the Packers.
All he had to do was, first, beat out a 10-year veteran in Pat O'Donnell, who had punted for the Packers in 2022 after eight years with the Bears. And, second, he had to perfect – there's that word again – the art of holding for placekicks, which he tirelessly worked at with the help of his mom flipping him short snaps in the kitchen back home between minicamp and training camp.
Lo and behold, he did both, deferential to O'Donnell's professionalism and grateful for the example and guidance he provided along the way. Landing the Packers' punting job, Whelan became the first Irish-born NFL player since Cardinals kicker Neil O'Donoghue in 1985.
The first thing that improved was his mental toughness, as he went from "super nervous" during games to "eager to get out there and help the team win." Three years later, never shortchanging the work, he put together the best season ever by a Packers punter.
"I mean, it was all fun, but it's all last year's news," Whelan said. "The hard part is going to be doing it over and over and over."
Orzech, who has been Whelan's long-snapper all three seasons in Green Bay, believes the consistency continues to come, along with an ever-growing arsenal of punts, depending on game circumstances.
Hang time, ball spin, direction, placement inside the 20, playing the wind, helping the coverage, when to be aggressive and take chances … there's a time and place for different priorities, and Whelan wants to be better at all of them.
"I think for him, because leg strength is not close to his limiting factor, it's just been about him learning really situational football, situational punting," Orzech said. "Coming into the league, all he cared about was hitting the big ball, and then now he's caring about choosing his spots, what he hits and when he hits it.
"Just having any degree of mastery of that, with his leg, is going to make his game go crazy. So I think every year he's learned a little bit more, matured a little bit more, and the way he picks his shots, it shows."
Despite his impressive 2025, Whelan did not receive any Pro Bowl or AP All-Pro accolades, but Orzech believes "it's inevitable" they're in his future the way he's trending.
Whenever those arrive, Whelan's only reaction will be he must do it again, because the perfectionist in him will demand it.
"No one has higher standards for Danny than Danny," Orzech said. "So most of the time it's just trying to keep him in a realistic point of view for himself.
"Again, with his leg talent, the sky's the limit and he can do some crazy things."
