Our Detroit Lions award nomination process continues today with our selections for Special Teams Player of the Year award. It wasn’t the greatest year for Lions special teams, but it certainly wasn’t a terrible year, either. After some early struggles, the Lions seemed to find their footing, and they even produced a few explosive plays toward the end of the season.
As always, our staff provides nominations for each award, but your vote decides the winner. Be sure to cast your selection in the poll at the bottom of the page.
Previous awards:
Detroit Lions 2025 Special Teams Player of the Year
Erik Schlitt: Grant Stuard
While the kick returner role never panned out, Stuard was a dynamic special teamer in all other ways. Stuard was an ironman in multiple phases, seeing the field for every snap on punt and kick coverage, as well as all but one snap on punt return, kick return, and field goal block. That not only gave him a team-leading 375 special teams snaps and 14 special teams tackles, but also an 83.0 special teams grade, which was second-best on the Lions and 16th in the NFL among players with over 300 special teams snaps.
Jeremy Reisman: Jack Fox
You may think Jack Fox had a down year because his net punting (42.8) and total punting average (46.6) are way down from last year (46.2, 51.0), but I believe those stats can be misleading based on where he was punting from. Because on the positive side, Fox also posted career bests in:
- Touchbacks (2)
- Touchback percentage (3.6 — previous low was 5.8%)
- Punts inside 20 (28)
- Inside-20 percentage (50.0)
Fox helped the Lions win the field position battle all year, with opponents average starting field position being the 29.6-yard line—good for ninth in the NFL.
Al Karsten: Daniel Thomas
It wasn’t a banner year for Dave Fipp’s unit. Punter Jake Fox, coming off a First Team All-Pro season in 2024, and kicker Jake Bates both saw dips in performance after special teams had been an underrated driver of the Lions’ 15 wins the year prior. Into that void stepped Daniel Thomas, a former Jaguars special teams standout who signed with Detroit after training camp and steadied the group. Despite battling hand and forearm injuries, Thomas logged more than 200 snaps across every special teams unit and finished tied for second on the team with eight special teams tackles.
Ryan Mathews: Hogan Hatten
Hatten earned Second Team PFF Honors for his work as a long snapper for Detroit this season, and he was PFF’s second-highest graded long snapper (79.9) in 2025. If you don’t recall any misplaced snaps fired back to Jack Fox, that’s a reminder of Hatten’s dependability and consistency.
John Whiticar: Hogan Hatten
On paper, there aren’t a lot of strong candidates. Jake Bates had a down year. Kalif Raymond had a punt return touchdown but his return average was his worst since 2017. Sione Vaki is an excellent special teamer, but he battled injuries all season. The easy pick would be Jack Fox, but I want to give a nod to his long snapper, Hogan Hatten. A good long snapper is invisible, and that’s exactly what Hatten is. He rarely, if ever, has a bad snap. As an added bonus, he is strong in coverage too, finishing as PFF’s second-highest graded long snapper.
Meko Scott: Kalif Raymond
This award could easily go to Jack Fox for having another solid year, but I’m going to show some love to Kalif Raymond. In 2025 we saw Raymond return 32 punts for 241 yards and a touchdown, while also breaking the Lions total punt return yards record previously held by Mel Gray.
Brandon Knapp: Jack Fox
With Jake Bates having a downish year, and the return game not being explosive, punter Jack Fox was only special teams player that stood out this year. He continues to be one of the best punters in the NFL.
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