Cleveland Browns are ready for ‘Hammer Time’

The Cleveland Browns’ Scottish Hammer, a.k.a. Jamie Gillan may be closing in on the first string punter’s job after Friday’s performance against Tampa Bay

Cleveland Browns rookie punter, the Scottish Hammer, a.k.a. Jamie Gillan may be closing in on the first string job, as hard as that is to believe, considering the skill of Britton Colquitt, the tenth year man out of Tennessee.

Colquitt is the son of former NFL punter Craig Colquitt and brother of Dustin Colquitt.  Colquitt has been a model of consistency in his 10 years in the NFL, and you could not ask for better bloodlines this side of Clay Matthews. He has done nothing wrong his entire career. Although he has never made the Pro Bowl, he is a consistent, superior performer.

But the Scottish Hammer, after learning his craft for the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions,  has been up to the task, booming punts to an average of about 47 yards through three games in the preseason. More importantly, he has incredible hang time on his kicks.

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Jeff Risdon of Browns Wire has held a stopwatch to the kid’s punts and reports a hang time in excess of 5.0 seconds. Very few punters around the NFL have that kind of hang time.  Moreover, Risdon has also reported on the 6-foot-1, 207-pound Gillan’s Pro Day results, highlighted by a 4.69 40 yard dash time and 23 bench press reps.

Are you kidding? 23 bench press reps are very good for a linebacker, but has any kicker ever accomplished 23 bench press reps? If one of you out there can find an example, please post it in the comments below. In the meantime, it can be safely said that Jamie Gillan is one of the most physically strong kickers ever.

Perhaps the best Hammer moment was not during a kick, but during a return. In the Tampa Bay game, punt returner Bobo Wilson of Tampa seemed about to break away, Gillan blew in and cut him down with a shoestring tackle. Clearly, Gillan won the respect and admiration of the special teams players on that play.

If he looked like a rugby player on that play, let us not forget that prior to becoming a Golden Lion at Arkansas Pine Bluff, he played rugby for the prestigious Highland Rugby Club. He was not just a bloke who played rugby, but someone that the Scottish Sun called a “rugby prodigy.” According to  The Scotsman, he played fullback for Merchiston Castle, which won the under-16 Brewin Dolphin Scottish Schools’ Cup.

We can thank his father, Colin Gillan, for bringing the family to America on assignment from the Royal Air Force (hint:  Beavercreek Browns Backers, located only a few miles from the US Air Force Museum, the largest aviation museum in the world, can offer to host the Gillan clan for a guided tour in the football off-season. What do you say).

Gillan, in addition to being the punter if he makes the team, will also be the emergency field goal kicker, and will also be the first string holder. Gillan has been the holder for rookie Austin Siebert.

The importance of the holder is often ignored, but it takes talent, time and repetitions to develop the skill to do it well. It may be that some of Siebert’s early difficulties were a function of the relationship between kicker and holder, and the two lads may be getting it figured out now. Certainly, a star rugby player would be a good candidate to become a holder and not a bad candidate to carry out a fake, either.

Finally, it is interesting to compare the Browns’ situation to that of the New England Patriots. Ryan Allen is a 29-year-old punter who performed well for the Patriots for six years, and in particular, starred in last year’s 13-3 Super Bowl win over the Los Angeles Rams.

In a low scoring game, Allen nailed the coffin corner three times, forcing the Rams to start from their own six, seven and two-yard lines, and overall accumulated 215 punt yards in five attempts. Patrick Morgan of Musketfire.com says:

"“It’s not hyperbole to suggest that Allen’s performance, in light of how low-scoring the game ended up being, was worthy of MVP consideration.”"

However, Ryan Allen is out of a job, beat out by rookie Jake Bailey, whose cap number is $568,000, compared to Allen at  $1.5 million per year, with $100,000 guaranteed. Bailey also boomed his punts this preseason, was noticeably better on kickoffs, and on top of that was drafted in the fifth round.

Teams usually play a kicker if they go to the trouble of drafting him. The net result is that the Patriots are going with the rookie over the Super Bowl hero, and they are shaving some $832,000 from the salary cap. That’s less than Tom Brady makes in a single game, true, but it still counts.

The Browns, on the other hand, have Britton Colquitt, who at age 34 — five years older than Ryan Allen — is sitting on $2.7 million worth of non-guaranteed money. That’s $1.2 million more than Allen was due to make. It could not be more clear from a business point of view that Gillan should replace Colquitt unless there is a compelling football reason to prefer the veteran, and thus far there is not.

Hence the guess here is that the Scottish Hammer will be punting for the Browns this year, and he will probably be holding for the new kicker, Austin Siebert unless something unexpected happens in the last week of summer camp.