Johnston’s Injury Opens Door For A Prater-Haack Reunion, Transforming Buffalo’s Punter Search Into a Possible Compelling NFL Comeback Tale
Being on an injury report is not great news, but it’s common at this time of the year. It was reported that Bills punter Cameron Johnston was injured in the Buffalo win over New Orleans.
Coach Sean McDermott said Johnston will miss some time and “we’ll bring some punters in, and go from there.” Throughout the internet, various stories are being circulated about the injury to Johnston. “Punter Hurt, Auditions Start For the Replacement.” Rinse, repeat, time for the next NFL injury story.
However, most (probably all) reports are missing the potential for a unique reunion between Matt Prater and veteran free agent punter Matt Haack that just over a month ago would have seemed a made-up story.
Johnston Injury Can Open The Door For Another Interesting Story
Many NFL fans are aware of Buffalo Field Goal Kicker Prater’s NFL Week One story. He boarded a red-eye from Phoenix to Buffalo. He got into town on Thursday and made the game-winning field goal on Sunday Night Football against Baltimore.
The Prater story was cute. An old guy that was mistaken by players for a new coach and then he kicked the game winner. TV Announcers discussed how earlier in the week he was taking his kids to school and coaching their youth football team. A phone call later, he was on a flight and a couple days later in the stadium lining up to beat Baltimore. If you think a game winning field goal is easy, just ask Los Angeles Rams kicker Joshua Karty if game-winning field goals are automatic.
Although painting a visual of Prater sitting in his car waiting for the half-mile line of cars to drop off his kids in the school lot makes him feel like one of us, it does not tell the whole story. After the drop off, Prater spent hours and hours with Haack and long snapper Adam Higuera at Gilbert Perry High in Arizona. It was not like Prater was on his couch all day. He was working out, waiting for another chance after the Cardinals did not re-sign him after an injury in 2024.
Picture this: A long snapper, punter and older looking field goal kicker in shorts in the Arizona sun. The high school stadium is empty. If you are a well-educated football fan, you recognize that Brock Purdy went to high school there not long ago. The three are working out. The Instagram video shows various drills between three grown men who at the time were out of work, looking to resume their NFL career.
The date of the video: August 20.
Finally – the Prater and Haack Connection – and How It Relates To the Johnston Injury
Ok, thanks for staying with me on this. It took a long way to get to the fact that the Buffalo Bills could reunite Haack and Prater now that Johnston is injured. Instead of a run of the mill, punter injured, punters auditioned, Bills sign punter story….this can be the first of its kind story:
- Two guys that met daily in the hot Arizona sun trying to stay in shape for another NFL opportunity are reunited. Snap, hold, kick…snap, hold, kick, multiple times a day in an empty high school in August.
- Now fast forward to October: Kicker (Prater) and holder (Haack) in a filled stadium against the New England Patriots.
- Haack punts a few times …Prater kicks multiple extra points, Haack holds…
For Haack, it would be a reunion on multiple fronts. He punted for the Bills for one season (2021) before being cut when Matt Araiza won the job for a few days. If you are well studied in NFL history you remember that Araiza was let go due to a legal issue that was since cleared. By then Haack was signed by the Colts.
The Haack and Prater reunion in Buffalo would be a good story. It probably will not happen. Online writers have little history of orchestrating the signing of punters. At the very least this hypothetical reunion story made the “Cameron Johnston got hurt and the Buffalo Bills need to sign a new punter” story a little bit more interesting.
