Tory
Taylor.
Tory
Taylor.
Iowa· 6'4"· 223 lb
"He arrived from Melbourne in his twenties and left Iowa City with the NCAA single-season punting yardage record, which is why a fourth-round pick on a specialist felt defensible right up until someone asked about net average."Pre-draft read
Taylor is a ProKick Australia product who punts like the Aussie rules footballer he used to be: a tall, long-levered striker who can roll the pocket, drop the ball on the move and change launch angle mid-operation. The raw leg is the headline, and at Iowa it turned into a record book, 46.3 yards a punt across 295 attempts in Big Ten weather.
The second gear is placement rather than pure hang. He is comfortable taking the ball out of bounds, spinning end-over-end punts that die inside the 10, and flipping a field with one swing when the offense stalls at its own 20. The tradeoff is the one every distance punter carries: the longer he hits it, the more the coverage unit has to run, and the hang time does not always match the yardage.
A field-position special teams operation that treats the punt as an offensive weapon — directional, sideline-hunting punting backed by a disciplined gunner-driven coverage unit, ideally in an outdoor cold-weather stadium.
Year 1: immediate every-down punter who flips the field for a defense-first roster. Ceiling: a top-five punter whose net average finally catches up to a 47-plus gross once hang time and coverage are in sync.
A dome team that grades its punter almost entirely on net and touchback avoidance inside the 40, where his distance is wasted and every long ball becomes return yardage or a touchback.
His value is coverage-dependent in a way elite hang-time punters are not — the same leg is a weapon behind fast gunners and a liability behind slow ones.
2024 Senior Highlights: P Tory Taylor | Iowa Football
His record-setting Iowa season, with the distance punts and sideline placement that won the Ray Guy Award.
The Bears got their punter: Iowa's Tory Taylor
Draft-day breakdown of the pick and what Chicago was buying at 122.
Bears Mandatory Minicamp Highlights | Tory Taylor Punting Nukes
Live-leg footage of his NFL operation and swing mechanics in Chicago practice.
Taylor is the rare punter drafted as a weapon rather than a roster necessity. A Melbourne native who arrived at Iowa in his twenties after Australian rules football and ProKick training, he spent four years as the most-used punter in a program whose entire identity was field position, and he never wore down.
The production is close to unmatched. He punted 295 times for 13,657 yards, both Iowa records, with 103 punts of 50-plus yards, and his senior year set the NCAA single-season yardage record at 93 punts for 4,479 yards and a 48.2 average. That season brought the Ray Guy Award and unanimous All-American honors. The flags were the ones scouts always attach to distance punters: he was already 26 on draft day, college does not track net average, and the volume that built the record also came from an offense that punted more than anyone wanted to admit.
Every board in the class had him as the best punter available, and nobody disputed the leg. The argument was price. Chicago spending pick 122 on a specialist drew immediate criticism as one of the draft's biggest reaches, with the counterargument that a top special teams unit values a four-year field-position answer more than a fourth-round backup elsewhere.
- 01
Elite leg strength
46.3 yards per punt across 295 career attempts at Iowa, including 103 punts of 50 or more yards in Big Ten weather.
- 02
Record-setting senior year
93 punts for 4,479 yards broke the NCAA single-season yardage record and delivered the Ray Guy Award and unanimous All-American honors.
- 03
Directional placement
the ProKick and Australian rules background shows up in his ability to angle punts out of bounds and pin returners to a sideline.
- 04
Durability and volume
handled an enormous four-year workload in a field-position offense without a drop in average or a missed stretch of games.
- 05
Weather-proof operation
his best numbers came in November games in Iowa City, which is exactly the environment his NFL home was going to be.
- 01
Distance over hang
the ball travels far but not always high, which puts the coverage unit under stress and shows up in a soft net average.
- 02
Age curve
he turned 26 before his rookie season, so a team was buying prime years now rather than a decade of cheap development.
- 03
No college net data
his entire resume is gross yardage, which flatters a punter whose value ultimately lives in the return yards he allows.
- 04
Positional price
even a great punter is a fourth-round investment in a player who touches the ball a handful of times a game.
| Yr | Team | G | Punts | Yds | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Iowa | 8 | 40 | 1765 | 44.1 |
| 2021 | Iowa | 14 | 80 | 3688 | 46.1 |
| 2022 | Iowa | 13 | 82 | 3725 | 45.4 |
| 2023 | Iowa | 14 | 93 | 4479 | 48.2 |
| Career | — | 49 | 295 | 13657 | 46.3 |
Season punts and yards sum exactly to the career totals Iowa lists (295 punts, 13,657 yards, 46.3 average); the 2023 line is the NCAA single-season yardage record. The previous record stored a career punt_avg of 183.8, which was the sum of the four season averages rather than a real figure, and zero-filled tackle, sack and pass-defensed columns; those are removed rather than kept at zero. College football does not publish net punting average, so no net figure is stored. His single career pass and rush attempt were fake-punt plays and are omitted as incidental.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
The median: an Australian-trained starter with a strong gross average, sideline placement and a net number that lives in the middle of the league.
The ceiling: a long-career, big-leg punter who paired distance with enough hang and placement to become a genuine field-position weapon.
The floor: a high-pedigree strong leg who never closes the gross-to-net gap and ends up replaceable by a cheaper, more consistent operator.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Chicago made him the punter from day one and he delivered exactly the gross number they paid for: 82 punts for 3,911 yards and a 47.7 average as a rookie in 2024, good enough for NFC special teams recognition during the season. In 2025, with Ben Johnson's offense staying on the field far more often, his volume dropped to 60 punts, but the leg held at 47.8 yards a punt with a long of 69, 21 punts inside the 20 and seven touchbacks. The trouble is what happens after the ball lands: his 40.4 net average ranked 25th among 32 punters, and PFF's overall grade put him 26th. He entered 2026 as the uncontested incumbent, but on local most-to-prove lists rather than in Pro Bowl conversations.
In hindsight the evaluation was right about the leg and quiet about the part that decides a punter's career. Nobody who watched Iowa doubted he would average 47 in the NFL, and he does. What the record-book resume could not tell you was whether the hang time would keep return men from erasing the yardage, and two years in, that gap is still the whole story. He is a real NFL starter and a defensible pick; he is not yet the field-position weapon the fourth-round price implied.
Data note: Season punts and yards sum exactly to the career totals Iowa lists (295 punts, 13,657 yards, 46.3 average); the 2023 line is the NCAA single-season yardage record. The previous record stored a career punt_avg of 183.8, which was the sum of the four season averages rather than a real figure, and zero-filled tackle, sack and pass-defensed columns; those are removed rather than kept at zero. College football does not publish net punting average, so no net figure is stored. His single career pass and rush attempt were fake-punt plays and are omitted as incidental.