On an otherwise maddening Sunday afternoon, the Green Bay Packers appear to have at least taken a step forward in the search for a new punter.
Jeremy Kapinos, signed earlier this week after the team held a handful of workouts to find a replacement for Derrick Frost, got off on the wrong foot with an early shank but quickly righted himself and went on to have a solid debut at Lambeau Field.
Kapinos punted eight times in all for a respectable 39.5-yard average in the 3-degree temperatures, with a net of 34.5. More important than those numbers, three of five times Kapinos was able to pin the Houston Texans inside their 20-yard line, including once inside the 5 with the game on the line.
His only failures in those situations were his opening shank, a 25-yarder that went out of bounds on the Houston 25, and a 49-yarder that went for a touchback.
"It kind of felt like I was back in college, back at Penn State," Kapinos said. "It was fun, it was enjoyable."
Kapinos sounded almost surprised he wasn't nervous, playing in just his second NFL game. He punted for the New York Jets in the season finale last year and hadn't gotten another chance until Sunday.
The nerves may have gotten to him a bit on that first punt, though, from midfield early in the first quarter. The low line drive that went mostly sideways was something the Lambeau Field faithful booed Frost for a week ago, and Kapinos was booed as well.
"I got excited with the ball being so close to the end zone," he said. "I really wanted to get that one down to the 20 to start off good. I just kind of let up on the ball and kind of popped it, and obviously you saw what happened.
"That's a mistake from time to time, where punters try to finesse the ball rather than kick it, and that's what I did. It wasn't how I'd like to start, but I think the finish is what matters, so I was pleased with that."
Ironically, it was Frost who got off to such a great start for the Packers in the season opener, but his year went downhill fast.
Kapinos had nowhere to go but up after his first effort, and he did, with a little encouragement from his new teammates.
"They just all came up to me and said, 'We've seen you all week, we believe in you,'" Kapinos said. "They kind of laughed about it and said, 'You got that one out of your system, now go out and have some fun. Start playing the game and doing what you want to do with the ball.' That definitely helped."
He responded by hitting punts of 48, 49 (the touchback) and 41 yards the rest of the first half, the last one forcing Houston to start from its own 13.
Kapinos started the second half with a 47-yarder that had pretty good hang time but wasn't covered well, resulting in a net of just 33 after a 14-yard return by Jacoby Jones, his longest runback of the day.
Then Kapinos' left-footed spin started to give Jones some trouble. He recovered his own muff on a 34-yard punt down to the Houston 10, and then on his next attempt, he muffed a low 37-yard line drive by Kapinos that long snapper Brett Goode recovered for Green Bay, leading to the game-tying touchdown in the fourth quarter.
"The one punt we recovered, it totally saved me on that one," Kapinos said. "That was a horrible punt too."
But the spin must have done something funny, because Jones had the ball bounce practically right off his facemask with no defenders around him. Kapinos said he's seen his left foot cause problems for returners in the past, noting that a high, hanging punt that doesn't turn over can drop almost straight down, which is what he suspected happened on Jones' first muff.
{sportsad300}"Last year when I was trying to break in, I'd go to Baltimore every time they would play a lefty and punt to their return men," said Kapinos, who spent most of his time out of football working out in his home area of Springfield, Va. "Because they knew the importance of the different kind of spin and stuff."
Kapinos then ended his Packers debut with his best effort. After the Packers squandered a potential late scoring drive with a holding penalty and a sack, Kapinos punted from the Houston 38 and dropped it right inside the 5. It was downed at the 3 by another new member of the special teams unit, linebacker Spencer Havner, signed from the practice squad on Friday.
Houston still managed to drive out of the deep hole and win the game with a last-second field goal, but Kapinos clearly had done his job.
"I was really glad that I was able to finish the game that way," he said. "I thought that was a good end note for the day."
And much better than his opening note, to be sure.
"The first one, I'm glad that didn't set the tempo," he said, "and I was able to recover from that."
