With Kai Kroeger’s release last week, Austin McNamara is now the lone punter on the New York Jets’ 90-man roster.

While special teams coordinator Chris Banjo has been encouraged by the punter’s early flashes, consistency remains a point of emphasis.

“I think he’s having a great camp. The biggest thing with him that we’re going to continue to work on is just the consistency aspect of it,” Banjo told reporters during training camp. “Obviously, he’s still a young pup in regards to the big picture of things, but he’s been having a great camp in terms of how detailed he’s been and trying to do what we’ve been asking him to do and accomplish.”

McNamara entered college football as one of the top punting prospects in the 2019 recruiting class and wasted little time proving it on the collegiate field.

The Arizona native became Texas Tech’s full-time punter as a true freshman and held the role for five straight seasons. During that span, he earned three first-team All-Big 12 appearances and a second-team nod, capping off his career in 2023 as the Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Year.

That final season was his most complete. McNamara averaged 46.4 yards per punt and posted a net average of 42.2, ranking among the top 15 nationally in both categories. His precision also stood out, as 26 of his 55 punts landed inside the 20-yard line and 27 were fair caught, both top-15 marks among FBS punters.

He topped 4.0 seconds of hangtime throughout all five of his college seasons, finishing with a career-best 4.25 average in 2023, which ranked third in the country. That kind of hang time was noticeably ahead of former Jets UDFA Kai Kroeger, who was waived last week.

After going undrafted in 2024, McNamara signed with the Bengals but did not appear in a preseason game. He was waived in early August during a head-to-head competition with fellow rookie Ryan Rehkow and spent the season on the open market.

With no competition currently on the roster, the punting job is McNamara’s to lose, but if he hopes to be the Week 1 starter, he will need to prove he can stay consistent.