The New Orleans Saints have had a significant burst of workouts Monday evening, including both receivers and punters. As for the punting side of things, they worked out Trenton Gill and Corliss Waitman, per NewOrleans.Football’s Nick Underhill. These workouts come only days after undrafted rookie Matthew Hayball won the initial starting position battle at punter over incumbent from 2023 Lou Hedley.
Neither player has had an exceptional start to their NFL career, however, both have starting experience at one point or another. Gill moved to the NFL in the 2022 NFL draft after spending four seasons at North Carolina State, where he would receive First-team All-ACC honors in 2021 and Third-team All-ACC honors in 2019. After being drafted in the seventh round at pick 255 by the Chicago Bears, he would end up as the starter in both 2022 and 2023. He accrued 133 punts there for 5,163 yards (46.1 average) and 38 inside the 20-yard line (28.6%). It is worth noting that his career long was a 76 yarder, which may be why the Saints took a look into him.
Waitman has had a much different football career, going undrafted in 2020 and being picked up by the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he would reside on their practice squad before being waived. He would then bounce around from the Las Vegas Raiders to the New England Patriots before coming back to Pittsburgh to get two games worth of opportunity, where he would punt 7 times for 365 yards (52.1 average) with only 1 inside the 20. In 2022 he ended up with the Denver Broncos where he would start the whole season, putting up 96 punts (most in the NFL that season) for 4,470 yards (46.6 average) and 30 inside the 20-yard line (31.3%). His career long is a 63 yarder, however he has not played in a regular season game since that season, as he would go to the practice squad of the New England Patriots for 2023 and Chicago Bears for 2024.
Ultimately, both may just be in consideration for pickups down the road pending the performance of Hayball. Or, maybe they want to retain one on the practice squad just in case of injury. We will see in the coming days if they want to make another addition at the position or if this was just for research. But at this time, neither has been signed, also per Nick Underhill.
