Falcons forced to sign fourth punter after Australian player can't secure visa
Rarely do you hear that a football team can’t get enough punters, but the Atlanta Falcons seem to be collecting them like they are Infinity Stones.
Due to some truly bizarre circumstances, the Falcons have signed a fourth punter on Friday, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter: former Wofford Terrier Kasey Redfern.
Redfern was signed to the practice squad, so a corresponding move will have to be made before Sunday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals. After that, stay tuned to see if the Falcons pursue a fifth punter.
Why did the Falcons need four punters?
The Falcons didn't enter the season thinking that they would need to worry about punters, since starter Matt Bosher finished third in the league in net average last season at 42.8 yards. The 31-year-old has been incredibly consistent since they selected him in the sixth round of the 2011 draft out of Miami.
But Bosher suffered a groin injury during Week 3, which forced the team to place him on the IR; he’ll be eligible to return after eight weeks. Unfortunately, his replacement, Matt Wile, is battling a hamstring injury, which will keep him out against Arizona this weekend.
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Things truly took a turn for the outlandish when the team signed Sam Irwin-Hill, an Australian citizen, to their practice squad on Tuesday. Although he played for the San Diego Fleet in the AAF this year and was previously rostered by the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys, Irwin-Hill was prevented from playing on Sunday because of a visa problem, according to ESPN's Vaughn McClure.
All of this leads to Redfern, who has one punt in his NFL career: a 50-yarder with the Detroit Lions in 2017. Whatever the record for most punters rostered in a season is, the Falcons must be approaching it. And at 1-4, they don’t have a ton left to play for, so they might as well see how many they can cycle through.
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