Once Jon Gruden said some of A.J. Cole’s punts reminded him of Raiders great Shane Lechler, you kinda figured the writing was on the wall for Johnny Townsend. Well, that writing became reality today when the Raiders released waived Townsend.

The Raiders spent a 5th round pick on Townsend in 2018 after missing out on the drafted top punters Michael Dickson and JK Scott. Townsend went on to become statistically the worst punter in football last season and had the team not been well out of contention by midseason, they probably would have released him then.

The undrafted rookie Cole has been thoroughly outplaying Townsend all of camp and once the coaches saw that continue in their preseason game, that was the clincher. The team now has Cole as the lone punter on the roster which means they intend on going into the season with him. That is unless they see someone on the waiver wire they like better.

The team made several corresponding moves as well.