Trenton
Gill.
Trenton
Gill.
North Carolina St.· 6'4"· 220 lb
"NC State's career punt-average leader who took over the Bears job as a rookie, lost it to a fourth-round Australian two years later, and kept punting in the league anyway."Pre-draft read
A 6-4 3/8, 220-pound punter with the leg to flip a field, which is the only trait that gets a specialist drafted at all. He averaged 47.6 yards a punt as a sophomore, the best single-season mark in NC State history, and finished as the school's career leader in punt average.
He is a directional punter with genuine hang time and enough raw power to routinely clear 50 yards, and he handled kickoffs at NC State as well. The concern that followed him into the NFL was consistency rather than power: his best punts are spectacular and his worst ones are short and returnable, and the placement inside the 20 never matched the gross average. A punter drafted at 255 must be a plus starter immediately to stay employed.
A special teams unit that prioritizes gross distance and kickoff coverage over precision directional placement inside the 20.
Year 1: starting punter and kickoff specialist. Ceiling: a decade-long starter on leg strength alone.
A coverage-first system built on 4.7-second hang times and pinning teams inside the 10, where his placement variance costs real field position.
The two-job value of punting and kicking off is what kept him on NFL rosters after Chicago moved on.
Bears draft Trenton Gill, P, NC State
The punting tape Chicago bought with the 255th pick.
Chicago Bears: punters are people too, new punter Trenton Gill
His rookie season as the starting punter.
Bears get penalized for trying to dry off the field before kick
The towel penalty against San Francisco on September 11, 2022.
Gill was born in Hillsborough, North Carolina and attended Cedar Ridge High School, where he played soccer and tennis in addition to kicking and punting for the football team. He walked on at NC State, redshirted his true freshman season and spent the following year as the backup to A.J. Cole III, who became a Pro Bowl punter with the Raiders.
He earned a scholarship and the starting job in preseason camp before the 2019 season, then immediately set the Wolfpack single-season record with a 47.6-yard average on 56 punts for 2,663 yards. That average led the ACC and ranked third in the entire FBS, and he was a third-team All-ACC selection and co-recipient of the team's Alpha Rising Award.
He followed with 52 punts for 2,334 yards and a 44.9 average in 2020, tied for third in the ACC, and was named Academic All-ACC and to the AFCA Good Works Team. His final season brought 65 punts for 2,930 yards, a 45.1 average and first-team All-ACC honors. He left as NC State's career leader in punt average and finished with 173 punts for 7,927 yards over four seasons, then went to the combine with the leg strength that made him one of only two punters drafted in 2022.
- 01
Leg strength
a 47.6-yard average in 2019 that led the ACC and ranked third nationally among all FBS punters.
- 02
Kickoff value
he handled kickoffs at NC State with a 64.0-yard average and 70 percent touchbacks as a senior.
- 03
Program record production
NC State's career leader in punt average across four seasons of starting in the ACC.
- 04
Multi-sport athleticism
a soccer and tennis background that shows in his balance and leg speed through the strike.
- 05
Character and academics
Academic All-ACC and an AFCA Good Works Team selection, with a walk-on-to-scholarship story behind him.
- 01
Consistency
his gross average is inflated by booming outliers, with too many short punts mixed between them.
- 02
Placement
his punts inside the 20 never matched his raw distance, which is the number that decides field position.
- 03
Hang-time control
he struggles to trade distance for height when his coverage unit needs the extra beat to get downfield.
- 04
Roster margin
punters drafted this late have no developmental runway, since a veteran free agent is always available.
| Yr | Team | G | Punts | Yds | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | NC State | — | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | NC State | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | NC State | 12 | 56 | 2663 | 47.6 |
| 2020 | NC State | 12 | 52 | 2334 | 44.9 |
| 2021 | NC State | 12 | 65 | 2930 | 45.1 |
| Career | — | 37 | 173 | 7927 | 45.8 |
Season totals sum exactly to the published career line of 173 punts for 7,927 yards. cfbstats lists 2,928 yards in 2021 against Sports-Reference's 2,930; the Sports-Reference figures are used so the seasons reconcile with the career total. Field goal and extra point columns are omitted because he never attempted either.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A big-leg punter whose distance keeps him employed while his placement moves him around.
The NC State punter he backed up, who became one of the best in the NFL.
A journeyman punter whose career became a sequence of one-year jobs.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Chicago took Gill with the 255th pick and handed him the job as a rookie, which is the entire point of drafting a punter. He punted for the Bears in 2022 and 2023. The moment most people remember came on September 11, 2022 against San Francisco, when he was penalized for using a towel to wipe off the sodden Soldier Field turf before a punt, a genuinely obscure rule that made national highlight reels.
His time in Chicago ended when the Bears spent a fourth-round pick on Australian punter Tory Taylor in the 2024 draft and waived Gill on May 1, 2024. Denver signed him on May 15 but he did not stick. Tampa Bay signed him to the practice squad on September 24, 2024 and promoted him to the active roster on October 23, giving him a second run of NFL punting. Atlanta signed him to its practice squad on January 1, 2026. Through 2024 his career line is 160 punts for 7,295 yards, a 45.6-yard average and 47 punts downed inside the 20. That is a solid-average NFL punter who has been a starter for parts of three seasons. For the 255th pick in a draft, two full years of starting and a second team willing to activate him is a reasonable return.