Packers seeking more consistency from rookie punter Justin Vogel

GREEN BAY - Rookie punter Justin Vogel’s impressive start early in Green Bay Packers training camp hasn’t been unblemished.

Vogel, undrafted out of Miami, has showcased a booming leg through camp’s first week. Unofficially, his best punt entering Thursday night’s practice was his first against a rush in camp, a 57-yarder that hung for 4.98 seconds. He has seven punts of at least 50 yards, accounting for almost half of his 15 punts against the rush in camp.

His average before Thursday was 48.6 yards with 4.3 seconds of hang time.

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Those numbers will be good enough to win the Packers' starting job if they carry through August, especially during the Packers' four preseason exhibitions. Yet special teams coordinator Ron Zook quickly spotted one area where Vogel could improve.

“Consistency is a key,” Zook said. “And he knows that. You’ve got to be consistent because like I always tell ‘em with special teams, we don’t get second down and third down. We get one down and obviously that one down has to be to the best of our ability. So that’s something that I think all young people have to work on is the consistency factor.”

For all his booming punts, Vogel has shown a tendency to mix one mishit into an otherwise good set.

In camp, Vogel punts in sets between four and six reps. He has four punts with fewer than four seconds of hang time, including at least one in each of his three sets. None of the four came early in the set, noteworthy since punters aren’t asked to punt several times without a rest in games.

But Zook said each punt in a set is important.

“I don’t put any more weight on one or the other,” Zook said. “The big thing is we don’t punt a lot in a row. Five or six, six is usually about as many as you want to do. But other than that, you kind of put them all together.

“Once again, like I said, consistency is going to be important.”

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