After cutting Pat O’Donnell, instead of Blake Gillikin returning from IR, the Cardinals signed veteran punter Matt Haack
The Arizona Cardinals have a new punter. When Pat O’Donnell was cut on Tuesday, one possibility was that regular punter Blake Gillikin, on injured reserve with a back injury, might be designated to return this week and be activated to play against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday.
That wasn’t the case. Gillikin was not designated to return, and the Cardinals signed Matt Haack.
Haack isn’t new to Arizona. He played collegiately at Arizona State and spend an offseason and preseason with the Cardinals. He was in camp in 2023 competing with Nolan Cooney in head coach Jonathan Gannon’s first season in Arizona after Andy Lee retired.
Haack lost the job to Cooney, but Cooney was let go four weeks into the season and Gillikin has been their punter ever since, aside from time missed with injuries.
Head coach Jonathan Gannon said on Wednesday that O’Donnell “did a good job for us, but, sitting down and kind of evaluating where we’re at, we thought this would help the unit.”
O’Donnell had averaged 42.2 yards per punt and had a net average of 36.2 in the five games he played for the Cardinals.
Haack has played with the Giants (2024), Browns (2023), Colts (2022), Bills (2021) and Dolphins (2017-20) in his NFL career after entering the league with Miami as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2017. In his career, Haack has appeared in 103 games during the regular season and has 453 punts for 20,230 yards (44.7 avg.) and 169 punts inside the 20-yard line.
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