The Baltimore Ravens saw their longest tenured player retire just a few short weeks ago in former punter Sam Koch. The veteran played 16 seasons with the franchise, having a phenomenal career on the field while making a massive impact off of it.
While Koch is no longer an NFL player, he hasn’t gone far. He’s now on the Ravens coaching staff as a special teams consultant, and when Baltimore special teams coordinator Chris Horton was asked about if it’s natural for Koch to step into a coaching role considering the fact that he would work with teammates to make them better as a player, Horton said that he believes the former punter will fall into the role because of his leadership ability.
“We’ll see how natural it is. Sam [Koch] as a player, he’s pretty like, ‘I need to do my job. Stay away from me.’ He didn’t smile a lot. We can actually get him to smile over there a little bit. (laughter) The pressure is not as high as guys that are trying to go out there and work every day. But I think he’s going to fall into that role just like the rest of us ex-players that want to coach, that are great leaders, that know how to get the most out of guys. He’s going to be OK doing that.”
Koch will now work with rookie punter Jordan Stout to turn him into the best player that he can be. The former Penn State University star has massive shoes to fill in those of Koch, but with the veteran’s guidance could make a massive impact right away in a Ravens uniform.
