To be a championship-level team in any sport, a standard of excellence must be set early in the process. When athletes know exactly what is expected of them, they have a clearer sense of the path they need to take to prepare themselves to make that level of execution the norm.
This is the approach the Green Bay Packers are taking with one veteran entering the 2025 campaign. Following Sunday's practice session, a third-year starter was singled out by assistant head coach and special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia, according to Ryan Wood of USA Today. The veteran coach minced no words when it came to his expectations for this coming season.
Rich Bisaccia says #Packers are expecting punter Daniel Whelan to have a big year: "The expectation is the standard is the standard, and he has set the standard now. So he has to play above that at all times."
— Ryan Wood (@ByRyanWood) August 10, 2025
Packers Make it Clear Daniel Whelan's at Risk if He Reverts to Old Ways
Daniel Whelan has been Green Bay's starting punter for the last two seasons after he finished his collegiate career at UC-Davis. After a 2024 campaign that saw Whelan rank in the bottom third of the league in yards per punt (46.1), net yards per punt (39.6), and percentage of punts downed inside the opponent's 20-yard-line (39.3%), Bisaccia is laying the hammer down on the third-year punter.
In the Packers' preseason opening loss to the New York Jets, Whelan punted the ball six times with an average of 52 yards per punt. His long for the night was 63 yards. Of those six punts, one was downed inside the 20 and one landed in the end zone for a touchback. As Bisaccia stated, this is now the expected norm from Whelan, and he would be best served to meet those expectations.
Whelan is signed to a one-year, $1.03M contract for the 2025 season. There is no guaranteed money attached to this deal. If he doesn't perform up to the standard placed on him by Bisaccia during the preseason, he will be shown the door.
An effective punter can have a long career in the NFL. On the other hand, an ineffective punter is typically thrown away like leftovers that have spent just too much time in the fridge. Whelan cannot afford to start trending back in that direction if he wants to continue to be employed as the punter for the Packers.