Browns Punter Corey Bojorquez Is Quietly Having A Pro Bowl Year

The Cleveland Browns are having a roller coaster of a season. They have beaten only one good team, the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 4, defeated four other clubs considered mediocre, and lost to two bad teams.

And now they are faced with some difficult games on their schedule, namely playing their division foe, the Cincinnati Bengals, twice.

RELATED: BOJORQUEZ INTERVIEW

Consider the fact that there aren’t any really good teams left on their schedule. Could they still make the playoffs? A division title seems out of reach, but it takes 10 or 11 wins to get that #7 seed, and they are already halfway to that goal.

There are several players on the Browns roster who are having a good year. Guys like TE Harold Fannin, LBs Carson Schwesinger and Quincy Williams, plus DT Mason Graham are getting their fair share of press regarding possibly getting some major Pro Bowl votes.

But one player stands out, and nobody is talking about his season: Browns punter Corey Bojorquez.

Guys who make their living on special teams are usually only noticed when they miss a field goal, or both a punt, or skip a pass to the holder. Bojo has quietly been killing it as Cleveland’s punter this season. He was re-signed during last March’s free agency period.

Currently, he is listed #5 in the league in net average per punt with 44.0 yards. The league leader is just 46.1, so Bojorquez is keeping the rankings tight. He is ranked #4 in average distance per kick at 50.4. Again, the leader’s number is close at 51.8, so one game could alter these numbers.

Usually, the punters with the most kicks in a season are on teams whose offensive units can’t finish drives, or are unable to sustain drives. Bojo is ranked #3 in the most punts with 43. The league leader plays for the Philadelphia Eagles, which backs up this stat goes to guys who are on struggling offensive teams. He booted a season-high eight punts in the loss to the New York Jets when the offense could not move the ball.

Bojo is considered a field flipper. This means his kicks can alter the opposing team’s field position just off one punt that has traveled 50+ yards. Case in point, in Week 3 against the Carolina Panthers, Bojorquez’s first punt was for 68 yards. Pretty good, eh? His first punt of the second half was 60 yards. Then his final kick was for a whopping 81 yards that went from Cleveland’s 19-yard line into the end zone.

The NFL record for the longest punt is Steve O’Neal’s 98-yarder in 1969 while playing for the New York Jets:

Take a look at Bojorquez’s 2026 season stats:

Week 1

Punts: 3

Yards: 130

Yards per punt average: 43.3

Net yards per punt average: 45.0

Downed inside the 20: 1

Blocked: 0

Long: 48 yards

Week 2  

Punts: 4

Yards: 198

Yards per punt average: 49.5

Net yards per punt average: 45.0

Downed inside the 20: 2

Blocked: 0

Long: 57 yards

Week 3

Punts: 5

Yards: 243

Yards per punt average: 48.6

Net yards per punt average: 45.8

Downed inside the 20: 3

Blocked: 0

Long: 62 yards

Week 4  

Punts: 4

Yards: 251

Yards per punt average: 62.8

Net yards per punt average: 50.3

Downed inside the 20: 1

Blocked: 0

Long: 81 yards

Week 5

Punts: 8

Yards: 421

Yards per punt average: 52.6

Net yards per punt average: 41.8

Downed inside the 20: 1

Blocked: 0

Long: 67 yards

Week 6  

Punts: 7

Yards: 315

Yards per punt average: 48.0

Net yards per punt average: 36.7

Downed inside the 20: 1

Blocked: 0

Long: 62 yards

Week 7  

Punts: 3

Yards: 144

Yards per punt average: 48.0

Net yards per punt average: 45.0

Downed inside the 20: 1

Blocked: 0

Long: 59 yards

Week 8  

Punts: 4

Yards: 199

Yards per punt average: 49.8

Net yards per punt average: 49.8

Downed inside the 20: 3

Blocked: 0

Long: 58 yards

Week 9  

Punts: 5

Yards: 267

Yards per punt average: 53.4

Net yards per punt average: 39.8

Downed inside the 20: 1

Blocked: 0

Long: 59 yards

When a running back breaks a play for 15 yards, those numbers are added to his game rushing stats. But with a punter, he could boot one for 56 yards, and then have it returned for 25 yards, which affects his net average; in this case, that stat would be 31.0 yards.

Whereas a fair catch or a touchback gives the punter the exact distance of the kick. So, something the punter has zero control over can affect his overall stats.

What is not considered is what kind of 56-yarder this is. Let’s say that this punt has a hangtime of 3.91 seconds and comes down in the center of the field. Even factoring in a long operation time, can one of the gunners get to the spot where the ball finally descends? Even if the gunner had nobody blocking him, there wouldn’t be a chance of this happening because that gunner would need to travel nearly 60 yards in just over 6 seconds. The punt is going to be returned.

Another obstacle on a punt is if the returner doesn’t catch the ball and lets it hit the turf. We all know that because of the shape of a football, it can go almost anywhere. Including backwards. This could take off as much as 10 yards on a punt before it is downed.

Yet another obstacle to getting larger numbers for punters is the pooch kick. This usually happens when the offense stalls out within 10 yards of the midfield stripe. A long field goal attempt is considered, but the coach decides it is out of the question. And the coach doesn’t want to go for it, whether that is because of field position or an unreasonable down-and-distance.

So, the punter trots out. Now, there isn’t much advantage to boom the kick for a touchback, so the kicker wants the ball to land inside the 10-yard line, preferably. And if he accomplishes this, the kick itself may have been downed at the three-yard line, but the punt only traveled less than 40 yards. That is a huge plus for flipping field position for the team, but it hurts the punter’s average. The only positive stat is the “inside the 20” tabulation. But that is pretty vague in itself. There should be another stat that says “inside the 5” to distinguish punters who have the ability to make the ball travel higher so that it descends closer to the goal line.  

For the past eight games, Bojorquez has had at least one kick of 58 yards or longer. He routinely has contests where he has multiple punts in the 50+ range. That becomes a weapon.

His talents were on full display in the loss to the New Orleans Saints. The Browns had to punt after their first possession. Bojo punted from Cleveland’s 26-yard line and was downed at the Saints’ 26. Their next possession was also a punt that went from the Browns’ 40-yard line to New Orleans’ 14-yard line. That’s flipping the field.

Bojo’s only punt in Quarter 2 went to the 20-yard line, where Saints returner Barion Brown fumbled, and Cleveland safety Donovan McMillan recovered. But the kick had traveled 57 yards first. His fourth punt also went 57 yards, while his final punt in the fourth quarter traveled 59 yards from Cleveland’s 16-yard line to the Saints’ 25.

This is Bojorquez’s ninth year in the league. In 202, he led the league in yards per punt average with 50.8 while with the Buffalo Bills, kicking about a third of his punts in freezing weather. In 2024, he led the league in number of punts (89) and total yardage (4,387). Last year, Bojo led the league in the same two categories, kicking 91 total punts and gaining 4,165 yards.

In three different years, he had the longest recorded punt: 2020 – 72 yards, 2021 – 82 yards, and 2024 – 84 yards. He is also leading this year with that 81-yarder in the Steelers game. Three of these punts are listed in the “Top-30 NFL Punts of All Time.”  

And yet, with all these accolades and league-leading accomplishments, Bojorquez has never made a single Pro Bowl.

This year seems promising.