Brad
Robbins.
Brad
Robbins.
Michigan
"A placement punter, not a cannon: he wins with hang time, a boundary and a goal line he never crosses, which is enough to start in the NFL right up until the day someone with a bigger leg is available."Pre-draft read
Robbins is a traditional right-footed, two-step operator who lives on placement rather than raw leg. His value starts with the drop: a clean, repeatable catch-to-strike sequence that lets him aim the ball to a sideline and turn the coverage unit loose instead of asking it to chase a returner across the field.
The second trait is hang time, which is what made the directional plan work at Michigan. He routinely stayed above four and a half seconds and generated fair catches on roughly a third of his attempts as a senior. He is a rugby-style change-up when needed and served as the holder for the placekicker. The signature is control near the goal line — he never dropped a punt into the end zone as a senior.
A field-position operation built on directional punting and coverage discipline, in a dome or mild-weather home stadium where placement and hang time are worth more than raw distance.
Year 1: starting punter and holder for a defense-first team that wants fair catches and inside-the-20 volume. Ceiling: a decade-long placement punter in a controlled environment.
A cold-weather, open-air job in Buffalo or Chicago where a coordinator needs a 60-yard bailout leg into a December crosswind.
He is a holder as well as a punter, which raises his roster value on teams that value a stable kicking operation.
NFL Draft Profile: Michigan Wolverines Punter Brad Robbins
Pre-draft film breakdown of the drop mechanic, directional placement and hang time that defined his Michigan tape.
Drue Chrisman and Brad Robbins punt at Bengals Thursday
Rookie-camp punting reps in Cincinnati during the competition he ultimately won for the 2023 starting job.
Brad Robbins is getting actual cheers for his punting at training camp
Bengals training-camp footage of the ball flight and hang time that carried him through his rookie season.
A six-year Michigan punter and holder, Robbins is a placement-and-hang-time specialist rather than a leg-strength prospect. He is a directional operator with a compact, consistent drop who was trusted to flip the field for a program built on defense and special teams, and who held for one of college football's best kicking operations.
The production backs the profile. Across 45 games he punted 179 times for 7,698 yards, a 43.0-yard career average that left him near the top of Michigan's all-time list. The 2021 season was his best — 45 punts at 46.33 yards with a long of 65 — and 2020 was nearly as good at 45.26. His signature outing came at Indiana in November 2020: seven punts for 375 yards. As a senior he averaged 42.28 on 43 attempts and, more importantly, kept every one of them out of the end zone while forcing a heavy fair-catch rate.
The flag is the same one every placement punter carries: power. He is not going to out-boom anyone in a wind game, his average dipped as a senior, and he was measured near 200 pounds, a light build for a 70-plus-swing job. Boards graded him as a role-player punter in the late Day 3 range and a real chance to win a starting job as a rookie. Cincinnati agreed, and took him at 217.
- 01
Directional placement
Aims the ball to a boundary with repeatable accuracy, shrinking the return field and letting the coverage unit play in a defined lane instead of pursuing sideline to sideline.
- 02
Hang time
Consistently kept the ball above four and a half seconds at Michigan, generating fair catches on roughly a third of his senior attempts and giving gunners time to close.
- 03
Goal-line control
Did not put a single punt into the end zone as a senior, showing the touch to shorten a field without giving 20 yards back on a touchback.
- 04
Peak leg on the plus side
Averaged 46.33 yards on 45 punts in 2021 with a long of 65, including a career-best 54.2-yard average at Penn State that season.
- 05
Operation and holding
Six years in one program as both punter and holder for the placekicker, with a clean drop mechanic that never became a snap-to-kick liability.
- 01
Raw power
A placement punter without a boom gear; he is unlikely to bail an offense out with a 60-yard flip when the coverage plan breaks down or the field position is desperate.
- 02
Senior-year dip
His average fell from 46.33 as a junior to 42.28 as a senior, which raises the question of whether 2021 was the outlier rather than the baseline.
- 03
Frame and durability
Measured near 200 pounds, a light build for a job that can demand 70-plus swings a season plus tackle attempts in coverage.
- 04
Weather variance
Placement-first punters lose their margin in wind and cold, and his ball flight does not carry the velocity to cut through a hard crosswind.
| Yr | Team | G | Punts | Yds | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Michigan | 10 | 64 | 2583 | 40.4 |
| 2019 | Michigan | 2 | 4 | 171 | 42.8 |
| 2020 | Michigan | 5 | 23 | 1041 | 45.3 |
| 2021 | Michigan | 14 | 45 | 2085 | 46.3 |
| 2022 | Michigan | 14 | 43 | 1818 | 42.3 |
| Career | — | 45 | 179 | 7698 | 43 |
The 2020, 2021 and 2022 lines are verified directly on cfbstats.com (Michigan, player 1090346): 23-1041-45.26, 45-2085-46.33 and 43-1818-42.28. The 2017 and 2019 lines come from the season-by-season punting table on StatMuse, which matches cfbstats exactly for the three overlapping seasons; cfbstats does not host Michigan player pages before 2020. Season totals sum exactly to the career line: 64+4+23+45+43 = 179 punts, 2,583+171+1,041+2,085+1,818 = 7,698 yards, 10+2+5+14+14 = 45 games. Robbins did not play in 2018, so that year is not listed rather than shown as zeros. Punts inside the 20 are not carried season by season in a verified source and are left blank instead of zero-filled. One Michigan outlet cites 44 career games and a 42.0 career average; that line is not published here.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- Three-time All-Big Ten honorable mention punter at Michigan (2017-2022)
- Second in Michigan history in career punting average; fifth in career punt yards (7,698)
- Career-best 375 punting yards on seven attempts at Indiana (Nov. 7, 2020)
Competent directional starter who bounces between teams as leg strength gets outbid.
Placement-first punter who holds a starting job for years by never giving the field back.
Good college operator who never sticks past a first opportunity and moves to a secondary league.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
One healthy season as an NFL starting punter in Cincinnati, then an injury year and two short stops; the placement profile translated but left no margin once he was replaced.
Cincinnati handed him the job immediately. Robbins punted in all 17 games as a rookie in 2023 and posted the profile he was drafted for: 76 punts, 3,369 yards, a 44.3-yard average, a long of 62, no blocks and 20 punts downed inside the 20. Then 2024 collapsed on him — he opened the season on injured reserve, was activated on September 30 and waived the next day after rookie Ryan Rehkow had taken the job. Buffalo signed him to a one-year deal in April 2025 and he won the camp battle, but a poor Week 1 got him released nine days into the season when the Bills brought in Cameron Johnston. The Raiders added him to their practice squad in October 2025, where he punted four times for a 39.5-yard average. As of September 2026 he is punting for the Columbus Aviators of the UFL and averaging near 50 yards a kick in that league.
The evaluation was accurate; the margin was not. Everything scouted showed up — the placement, the fair-catch rate, the inside-the-20 volume — and it was enough to hold an NFL job for exactly one healthy season. What the profile could not survive was the injury year, because a punter without a big leg has no cushion when a cheaper option performs while he is out. He gave the Bengals a competent rookie season on a sixth-round contract, which is close to the median outcome at 217, but he never established himself as a long-term answer anywhere.