Longtime Ravens Veteran Announces Retirement

It's quite rare for an NFL player to stay with one team for the entire duration of his career, but that's exactly what punter Sam Koch did with the Baltimore Ravens. Now, after 16 years with the organization, the 39-year-old finally announced his retirement from the league on Thursday.

Long-time #Ravens punter Sam Koch has announced his retirement.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) May 19, 2022

Sam Koch NFL Retirement

Koch was 'Mr. Consistency' throughout his NFL career, missing only two of Baltimore's 258 regular-season games during that stretch. He stayed healthy throughout his career and only missed the games after contracting COVID in 2020, meaning he played 239 straight games before that.

The former All-Pro punter averaged 45.3 yards per punt on 1,168 attempts over his career, only being blocked on seven occasions. His 52,868 putting yards are the seventh-most in NFL history and his 256 games played are also the most by any player in a Ravens uniform. He also helped them win Super Bowl XLVII.

Koch's former coaches and teammates raved about him in a retirement article posted on the Ravens' team website. Special teams coach Randy Brown event went as far as saying that Koch "revolutionized the game of football" by proving that punters can have different punting styles.

"As a whole, every punter in the NFL owes Sam Koch a debt of gratitude for being the pioneer of change on how punting is executed in this league."
- Randy Brown

The Ravens likely already have Koch's replacement in former Penn State P Jordan Stout, who management selected 130th overall at the 2022 NFL Draft. Stout set a Nittany Lions record with 46.6 yards per punt in 2021 and hopes to have a similar impact in Baltimore.

Nevertheless, Koch had a career that most football players wished they could have. It certainly wouldn't be shocking to see him added to the Ravens' Ring of Honor one day.

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Devon Platana is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Devon Platana also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username PepeSilvia0. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.