Pack Pros in Pro Football Focus’ Projected Starters List: Special Teams

With less than three months remaining until the 2020 NFL season opener, Pro Football Focus updated its list of projected starters for all 32 teams and it includes a number of former Wolfpack players.

NC State currently has 26 former players on current NFL rosters, nearly half of which are projected starters for the upcoming season.

Last week, PFF released its All-Decade Top 101 for the best NFL players of the 2010s. Two former NC State quarterbacks, Russell Wilson and Philip Rivers, made the prestigious list that only included six other quarterbacks beyond the Pack duo.

We’re breaking down the upcoming season for all 26 Pack Pros on NFL rosters, rounding out the projected starters today with special teams. Here’s the list of former NC State players that start on special teams in PFF’s projected starter list:

While Pack fans remember Hines as the leading rusher on NC State's 2017 football team with 1,113 yards and 12 touchdowns on the ground that season, the hometown Garner, N.C., native made a name for himself last year as one of the NFL's most dangerous return-men.

Hines already made a handful of memorable returns for touchdowns on special teams during his time with the Wolfpack, including his 100-yard kickoff return against Clemson in his freshman season, the first and only kick return he converted into a touchdown in Carter-Finley Stadium.

After establishing himself as an explosive weapon on offense during his rookie season with the Colts in 2018, Indianapolis decided to grant him with return duties on kick-offs and punts in 2019.

Hines ended up converting nine punt returns into two touchdowns, both of which were in the same contest versus the Carolina Panthers. He gained a total of 281 yards on nine punt returns resulting in a 31.2 yards per return average.

Entering his second season with the Raiders franchise, formerly of Oakland but now based in Las Vegas, Cole earned his first NFL contract as an undrafted free agent in 2019. He made the most of his opportunity and beat out the starting punter before him, Johnny Townsend, for the job.

Cole finished the year with a 46.0 punting average, a mark good for middle of the pack in the NFL. His longest kick in 2019, a 74-yarder, was the third-longest punt in the league last season.

The most experienced among the special teams Pack Pros on this list, Hauschka enters his 13th season in the NFL and his fourth with the Buffalo Bills.

Now on a Bills team that is the potential favorite of the AFC East in 2020, the former Wolfpack placekicker has had his share of big kicks in the NFL.

In 2014, he was a part of the Super Bowl XLVIII Champion Seattle Seahawks. The season after, he began a field goal kicking streak from beyond 50-yards in which he made 13 consecutive kicks on attempts from that distance, an NFL streak that still holds today.

Hauschka's latest clutch kick was an overtime-forcing connection from 47-yards in an AFC Playoffs Wild Card matchup against the Houston Texans.

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