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On Thursday, ESPN senior NFL insider Adam Schefter (and multiple other sources) reported that the Minnesota Vikings are planning to sign former Pittsburgh Steelers punter Jordan Berry.
It’s the second time in less than a year that Berry, 30, has displaced a member of the Colquitt punting family, as the Vikings cut Britton Colquitt to make room for Berry. (In fact, Minnesota cut Colquitt twice this week, releasing him as part of final roster cuts, before re-signing him and then cutting him again.)
Even more notable is that Britton is the younger brother of longtime NFL punter Dustin Colquitt. Last October Berry took Dustin’s job, a little more than a month after the Steelers tried to replace Berry with Dustin, the latter of whom already had 15 years in the league at the time.
The Colquitt Family: Punting Royalty
The Colquitt family is the closest thing the NFL has to punting royalty. Britton and Dustin are sons of Craig Colquitt, who won two Super Bowls while punting for the Steelers in the 1970s and into the mid-1980s.
For his part, Britton has been punting in the NFL since 2010, coming into the league after playing collegiately at Tennessee. He went on to kick for the Denver Broncos for six seasons before moving on to the Browns (2016-18), followed by the Vikings (2019-20).
As for the 39-year-old Dustin Colquitt, he spent almost his entire NFL career with the Kansas City Chiefs after also punting for the Tennessee Volunteers. He’s a two-time Pro Bowler who kicked for the Chiefs for 15 seasons before catching on with the Steelers in September of last year. He lasted just five games in Pittsburgh before going on to appear in one game for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
As noted by Pro Football Reference, Britton and Dustin are also cousins of Jimmy Colquitt, who punted in two games for the Seattle Seahawks in 1985.
Jordan Berry Hails from Australia
As for Berry, he’s a native of Melbourne who won Pittsburgh’s punting job in 2015 after a college career at Eastern Kentucky. He kept the gig until 2020, when he shared it with the aforementioned Colquitt.
The Steelers re-signed Berry to a one-year contract in March of this year, but the seven-year veteran lost his job to rookie seventh-round pick Pressley Harvin III in a training camp/preseason competition that very much went down to the wire.
Notably, Berry did not falter in his months-long competition with the rookie, averaging 43.9 yards per punt in the preseason versus 44.7 for Harvin. But the Steelers no doubt took into consideration that Harvin is eight years younger and under team control for the next four seasons at a very reasonable cost. Also, according to overthecap.com, Harvin will earn a salary of $660,000 this year and count $680,183 against the cap, this as compared to Berry, who was scheduled to be paid $990,000 if he had remained with the Steelers.
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