Why 30-year-old Australian rookie Lou Hedley was such a fascinating choice as Saints’ punter

It’s not just the tattoos or the mullet or the mustache or the accent.

It's not just the captivating life story of new Saints punter Lou Hedley, an Australian native who never graduated high school before playing Australian Rules Football, opening a tattoo shop with a friend in Bali, working as a scaffolder in his home country, then coming to America to punt at City College of San Francisco and the University of Miami (Fla.)

Yes, all those things make the 30-year-old rookie the most fascinating player on New Orleans’ newly formed 53-man roster.

But what’s also so compelling about the Saints’ choice is that they decided to take a bit of a gamble on a growing trend that has overtaken college football and filtered into the NFL over the past decade. More and more teams are turning to Australian or “rugby-style” punters with a wider variety of kicks that make it harder for opponents to return on a consistent basis.

New Saints punter Lou Hedley joked about how he probably tried to score too much when he played Australian Rules Football. But growing up in a country where he was “kicking a football since I could walk” definitely helped with his transition to the American version of the sport. pic.twitter.com/VP4OE8pWpS— Mike Triplett (@MikeTriplett) August 31, 2023

Hedley joins current NFL standouts like the Seahawks’ Michael Dickson (author of the famous “double punt”), the 49ers’ Mitch Wishnowsky and a handful of others who have come through ProKick Australia. The program in Melbourne was founded by former NFL punter Nathan Chapman to teach Australian Rules Football players how to punt an American football and earn opportunities in the U.S.

“I think Lou has a couple more, maybe tools in the box, if you will. Just a little more variety of kicks,” Saints special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi said of the close battle between Hedley and incumbent punter Blake Gillikin throughout the offseason. “He’s not your traditional turn-over-the-ball kind of guy. But the bottom line in punting is at the end of the day, there’s one number that matters, and that’s net punting. And you can get there a lot of different ways. You can kick the ball 70 yards and have a 30-yard return and have a 40-yard net, or you can kick the ball 40 yards on the paint. Same result, just a different way to get there.”

Sure enough, Hedley’s net average on 11 punts in the preseason was 42.1 compared to Gillikin’s 36.6 on 10 punts – even though Gillikin kicked the ball farther.

Only one of Hedley’s 11 punts was returned for a positive gain — for a total of just seven yards. Another punt was muffed, which has been an added benefit of punters with his style. Over the last two preseason games, Hedley recorded punts of 49, 49, 47, 46 and 44 yards that weren’t returned or were returned for no gain.

“It took me the first couple games of kind of kicking in the Dome and getting used to it, changed a few things up. But I think I really showed it in that last preseason game,” Hedley said. “I got the 47-yarder with a 4.8 hang. So end-over-end or spiral, that’s a great ball, no matter what the ball’s doing in the air. If you can hit a ball like that consistently outside the numbers, it makes everyone’s life easier.”

In Los Angeles the week before, Hedley said he mixed things up with a spiral and a couple end-over-end kicks.

Darren Rizzi on the kicker and punter battle this offseason pic.twitter.com/pFCWJgaX8K— NOF (@nofnetwork) August 30, 2023

And Rizzi made the point that the Saints feel like Hedley still has a “higher ceiling” and room to keep improving, since he’s still learning a new style in the NFL compared to college, where rugby-style punters really get a chance to thrive because they’re allowed to roll out of the pocket and buy a few extra seconds while their coverage team gets down the field.

In the NFL, punters have to stay in the pocket, and their coverage team doesn’t get a free release.

That’s partly why you’ve seen Australian punters overtaking the college game, including the Ray Guy Award winners for the nation’s top punter in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2022. More than 50 Division 1 programs have turned to punters who came through the Prokick Australia program in recent years, including both Georgia and TCU in last year’s national championship game.

As Hedley pointed out, you kick the ball to pass in Australian Rules Football. So kids grow up kicking the ball in the yard instead of playing catch.

“I’ve been kicking a football since I could walk,” Hedley said. “It’s helped me learn how to kick an American football faster. It didn’t feel like I was doing it from scratch. … It’s a lot different (ball, but the same) eye-kick coordination.”

New Show: Breaking down the Saints 53-man roster- Wil Lutz traded to Denver- Alontae Taylor the new starting slot- Lou Hedley over Blake Gillikin- Jaylon Smith cut?📺: https://t.co/KBMrB7GbK7 pic.twitter.com/D6dgOnVPqp— NOF (@nofnetwork) August 30, 2023

Still, with the tattoos and the mullet and the mustache and the adventurous past, Hedley does stand out among every other punter in pro or college, American or Australian.

He called ProKick Australia himself after he had seen the success of other punters in the United States. But he had to start his journey at a junior college since he didn’t have a high school degree – he recalls living in a three-bedroom house with, “about 13 footballers and one bathroom,” while trying not to act like the adult in the group too much.

Nevertheless, Hedley said his decision was already validated when he earned not only an undergraduate degree, but a master’s degree at Miami. He also has a 5-year-old son named Loki and said he thinks his family will stay in America forever after the experience has been so great here.

Hedley also became a cult hero at Miami, when he donned the No. 94 formerly worn by “The Rock” Dwayne Johnson and earned second-team All-American honors in 2020. Hedley said he grew up as a wrestling fan and “just thought it would be really cool to rock his number.”

As a result, Johnson has become a champion of Hedley’s, sending him a video message encouraging him before the draft and publicly congratulating him this week on making the Saints’ roster.

Rooting for this guy to make it 👏🏾👏🏾Love Lou Hedley’s story and his hunger. #theU #94 @NFL @Saints https://t.co/GbqmjJQ4XV— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) August 30, 2023

“I think once I committed to go to junior college in San Francisco — I had a pretty good job working in construction as a scaffolder — so (I was) kind of leaving that all behind, family, friends, the life I had there,” said Hedley, who said his parents would have been his first phone call when he found out he made the Saints roster, but it was the middle of the night back home in Australia.

“Once I did that, I think there was no looking back.”