Packers Q&A with Pat O’Donnell

The Packers signed punter Pat O’Donnell in free agency following his eight seasons with the Bears.

He enters week seven ranked third in the NFL with 14 punts that pinned the opponent inside the 20. Almost all of them were inside the 15 or even closer to the goal line.

Q: What’s the key to all those inside-the-20 punts?

A: Good gunner play.

Q: You must be doing something, too.

A: Honestly, it’s just all touch, it’s all feel. When you get closer (to the goal line), it gets a little bit harder, so it’s more of a feel-finesse ball. It’s being able to get the guys in a position to down the ball. You don’t want to make it too hairy when you put it on the 1 every single time. You need to give them a little bit of a buffer space.

Q: Here’s an off-the-wall question for you. What shoe size do you wear normally and what do you wear to kick?

A: I’m a normal 12 in sneakers and I wear an 11 to kick. Nothing crazy — a size down.

Q: Does that get uncomfortable wearing too-small shoes for about 4 hours on Sundays?

A: Oh, yeah, especially when it starts getting cold out. That’s when you really start to feel it, but I’m used to it. I’m sure my foot has shrunk because I bind my feet up in a smaller shoe.

Q: What’s it going to be like when you’re 60?

A: I don’t know. I don’t want to know.

Q: Why? I’m sure you’d punt the ball just fine with sneakers, barefoot, sandals or with Crocs.

A: It’s more of a feel. You can feel the ball more. It’s like wearing a golf glove. You wear it tighter; you don’t want a big, baggy glove so you can’t feel the club. It’s essentially the same thing.

Q: I was looking for photos of you a while back and there were a bunch from the kicking camp you host in West Palm Beach, Florida. How long have you been doing that?

A: I’ve been doing a youth kicking camp for three years — COVID knocked out one of the years.

Q: Why is that important?

A: I just think it’s important for me to give back. Down in South Florida, a lot of guys when I was growing up did camps like that. I thought it was really cool. For me to give back, I thought it was something that I definitely should.

A lot of guys don’t do that. I think it’s important to expose kids to different positions in football. Quarterbacks do it and a million people show up, but the specialists, not so much. If I can change one kid’s life and have him fall in love with kicking like I did, I did my job.

Q: I’m glad you answered it like that. Was there someone in your life when you were a kid that helped you on this path?

A: It was actually a guy (Tony Bugeja) who played in the AFL and he played at a Division III school in Carolina who’s now my kicking coach. He’s been my best man at my wedding. He’s awesome. I was a soccer kid growing up.

All of us wanted to get a scholarship somehow and I jumped from soccer to kicking, and he was the guy that exposed me to kicking and kept in touch and basically taught me everything I know.

Q: How old were you when you started playing football?

A: I was just going into high school. I had never played football before. I was always super-competitive in soccer and I always saw (the football team) on the neighboring field and I was like, ‘I could do that.’ So, it was cool that I got to experience that, and look where I am now.

Q: Were you good right away? Like, did you start kicking and you thought, “I’m as good as I thought I’d be!”

A: I always had natural instincts to kick a ball and strike a ball well, but punting was probably more challenging because it’s a different style. Punting is linear and straight up vs. kicking and the rotation that you kick. It was definitely a challenge, a transition for me.

Typical story: I was trying out for the freshman team and it was a week before the opening game and they lined us all up on the fence and the coach said, ‘Who’s kicked before?’ I said I played soccer. Typical movie scene. I kicked it the furthest and the rest was history.

AT A GLANCE

Number: 16

Age: 31

Season: Ninth

College: Miami