Matt Araiza was certainly the most talked about punter prospect heading into the 2022 NFL Draft.

He was a consensus All-American and won the Ray Guy Award as the nation's best punter after setting an NCAA single-season record by averaging 51.2 yards per punt.

Yet the San Diego State product was the third punter off the board when the Bills selected him in the 6th round, 180th overall.

The reason? 

There are likely two.

Araiza's all about distance rather than hang time.

"He wasn't really asked to do that in college," former NFL kicker Nick Novak said. "It was just kick this thing as far as you can. If it gets on the ground, great, and it rolls another 20 yards, that works because, as you know, you can just cover down as soon as the ball is snapped. In the pros you can't do that. It's a penalty, so hang time was a priority from day one."

Novak began training Araiza at the beginning of the year, using his 10 seasons of NFL experience as a kicker to help prepare Araiza for the NFL.

"He was really good at driving the punt out," Novak said. "So really all we needed to do was change his drop level, where his table was. Raise his drop level a little bit. Shortened his approach. So now he's covering less ground. He's right around 3.5-4 yards when he makes contact with the ball, which is really good. Then just getting up through it. Using the ground a little bit more, trying to not think of getting off the ground, but you're kind of going forward a little bit and coming off the ground. So he's using his entire body to swing up instead of out so much."

These changes have already resulted in much improved hang time, with Novak clocking Araiza consistently around 4.8-5 seconds or more in the air for punts regularly traveling between 50-55 yards.

He's also worked on directional kicks as well as navigating the wind, something Novak knows about from experience inside Highmark Stadium, where he played twice, going 2/2 on field goal attempts and 3/4 on extra points.

​"Now it's just holding onto the ball a little bit longer," Novak explained. "Bringing your leg to it, which you have to do in windy conditions such as Buffalo or Chicago. Really anywhere. It can be windy in any stadium outdoors. So it was just that. Raising the drop a little, bringing your leg to it. You don't want that ball to be in the air for too long or else the wind just takes it and now you're chasing the ball."

While Araiza's new and improved punting techniques are the new way for him, Novak doesn't see the old way going completely away.

"To be honest with you, that 80 yards, 4.3-4.4 [second kick] that he did so well in college, I think that might be a club he'll use often there," Novak said. "You don't want to get it sometimes too high. You're going direction left and then the ball's blown way across the field right. So that driven ball next to the sideline, potentially out of bounds just might be a ball he'll get to use more often. I know he wants to incorporate that into his game."

The other area Araiza's been working on is something he's never done in a game at all: holding.

"It was for sure a concern of scouts and teams that we spoke to throughout the process," Novak admitted.

We know how important it is to the Bills, with General Manager Brandon Beane admitting that the team stuck with Matt Haack through his punting struggles last season because of what Beane referred to as "elite" holding skills. The team did not want to mess with the chemistry with kicker Tyler Bass, who was having a great season.

So while Araiza's leg gets all the attention, it's his hands that might be the difference between beating out Haack for the Bills punter job or not making the team at all.

"That was priority number two, after hang time, was that no matter what that he was confident, comfortable, and it was second nature. The mindset of a great holder is almost like a surgeon. You have to be calm, composed, calm hands, not a whole lot of wasted movement or motion. Catch the ball, put it down. All the great holders that I had, you can't see the adjustment. They already know what lean you need based on the wind and what it's doing and there's a whole bunch of tricks that we taught him. So he's prepared for everything."

Novak believes Ariaza's had practice catching and holding over 1,000 snaps during their four months together.​

And who better to determine where Araiza's progress is after all that time than someone who was on the kicking end of this equation for a decade in the NFL?

"What I ask myself is would I want him holding for me?" Novak said. "The answer is yes."