Buffalo Bills: Matt Araiza working on holding for field goals

The best chance for the ‘Punt God’ to make the Buffalo Bills’ 53-man roster may not have anything to do with punting at all

The Buffalo Bills drafted Matt Araiza out of San Diego State University in the sixth round of the 2022 NFL Draft. He was the third punter drafted last month but probably had the strongest leg of any of the players at his position.

However, Araiza’s best chance to make the 53-man roster may not have anything to do with punting at all. The reason is that punters are also responsible for holding on field goal and extra point attempts, which is something Araiza doesn’t have a great deal of experience with.

After practice at rookie minicamp, Araiza was asked about this and he talked about what he is doing to practice this.

"“I wouldn’t say a whole ton of stuff outside of practice. One of my favorite drills to do is catch snaps one-handed because once you can get the confidence with that it’s pretty hard. Then it feels very easy to catch them with two hands I would say that’s my favorite drill.”"

Araiza was also asked if it matters who the kicker is and the rookie punter did say that every kicker has a preference in the angle of the ball when they are kicking. If there is an area that last year’s punter Matt Haack has the advantage, it would be this.

Matt Araiza has plenty to prove to win punting job with Buffalo Bills

After the season, general manager Brandon Beane said that one of the reasons the team didn’t want to make a change was they didn’t want to disrupt Tyler Bass and the season he was having.

For a team that didn’t punt much last year, and hopefully doesn’t punt much moving forward with Josh Allen and this offense, holding for Tyler Bass is likely to play a big role in who wins this training camp battle.

It will be interesting to see how much time Matt Araiza gets with Tyler Bass during offseason workouts to gain that familiarity and the necessary reps to show he can handle these duties.