EAGAN, Minn. — There's a trace of self-deprecating humor in Ryan Wright's voice.

"I'm not a good golfer by any means," he said. "(But) I have some good shots every once in a while."

The Vikings punter has discovered applicable value in the gentleman's game. He frequents the links in the offseason, and he analogizes his bag of clubs to his burly right leg on his 6-foot-3, 245-pound frame.

"When I'm out there on the field, I'm really looking to hit that nice and easy 6- or 7-iron, whereas if you try to hit that driver, it can spray," Wright explained in mid-December. "I'll hit some shots and be like, 'Why did I swing so hard?' when I just need to let the club do the work. It's the same thing with my leg."

A collection of games and recent admiration for Minnesota's specialists (also long snapper Andrew DePaola and kicker Will Reichard) shared by Head Coach Kevin O'Connell confirmed Wright has made some good punts more than every once in a while: "They've been a huge part for us winning in a year where maybe we haven't [taken] the normal path that we've kind of been accustomed to either offensively or at times with some of the things we've had to navigate on [defense]," the coach said. "That one-play phase has turned into a massive play phase for us to try to play complementary football."

Like his counterparts, "Mr. Wright" is an unsung standout and a top performer among NFL specialists.

Seated comfortably at a high-top table adjacent to the locker room inside Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center, the 25-year-old former UDFA reflected on 2025, a season full of personal highlights, with a punter's humility — uninterested in tooting his horn or circling a specific moment as his favorite.

Wright is modest, the requisite trait for a person playing an oft-thankless position. He doesn't gloat about his NFL season-long 77-yard punt versus Cleveland in London or his 65-yard "alley oop" at Dallas, which practically landed on rookie gunner Tai Felton's heels and bounced to the Cowboys 3-yard line.

"I'm prouder of just the overall consistency and the performance that I've put in this year," Wright said. "I'm a little bit smarter, my football IQ's a little bit better, I understand the punt play a little bit better. And that's just reps — having reps in the league and doing it at the highest level possible and just knowing what exactly I want to do with every single ball and having that supreme confidence to [do it]."

Wright's in-season routine hasn't switched up much from years past, he noted, but he feels like he is more homed in on the specifics of his job. He's not cutting corners, or banking on his talent alone. He owns the complacency he showed after a strong debut 2022 season and now wants to master his craft.

"The potential was always there for this guy," Special Teams Coordinator Matt Daniels expressed a couple of days after Minnesota's win over the Cowboys, reiterating what he said near the start of Wright's fourth season. "But I think the biggest thing [is] being coachable, having a growth mindset, trying to get rid of some old bad habits that we had — take the coaching and be able to run with it.

"Even looking back at his rookie year," Daniels reflected. "The leg talent was there. There were just inconsistencies in his game, and so now he's found a way to stack positive performances and build off that, which has really given him a ton of confidence to go in and perform at an elite level for us."

Wright recalled dialogue with his coach/friend that was a harbinger of his breakout: "I mentioned to 'Hat' [this summer] I actually felt as strong as I did coming out of college for a change, which I think has really been helpful because I don't have to put as much into a ball to get the result that I want anymore."

Wright incorporates yoga and pilates; both activities help with his range of motion. He's a fanatical power-cleaner (since high school) so it's no wonder his go-to punt is called a "napalm" — a "bomb" that whips left. He divides his focus during the week, conquering his footwork and his ball handling. It's important for his line (the setup of his foot strike) to be habitual, like brushing teeth. He uses a short JUGS machine that blasts out balls at a lower trajectory to simulate snaps and said he aims for a daily average of 100 drops.

"I have my wife toss me some every once in a while," Wright said with a smile. "If I'm in a hotel room or my own bedroom at home, I'll just kind of spin it to myself, drop it on the bed. Just small things like that."

He has embraced all these idiosyncrasies to "play free" when it counts.

A major component is "visualizing where I want to put the ball, where I want my feet to be on the hash marks — on the outside of the hash marks — where this drop needs to be, how much it needs to be angled in and just really building up that muscle memory," he added. "Whether that's finishing my foot at the ear, whether that's having a relaxed arm … just [polishing] everything as far as technique goes."

The results of Wright's attention to detail and maturation as a professional are glowing.

With one game left on the docket, he is third in the league in net yards per punt (44.2) and sixth in average yards (49.0; min. 30 attempts). Ideally, Wright's hang time matches his yardage — for instance, a 45-yarder reaches its destination in 4.5 seconds. His average hang is 4.48 seconds and ranks eighth out of 31 punters meeting the above criteria, per Pro Football Focus, and is 0.08 longer than his prior best.

Maybe most impressive, Wright has synced power with accuracy. He's pinned 11 of his 61 punts inside the opponents's 10 yard-line (18%), which is the fifth most in the NFL — two of the four players ranked higher have punted five and eight more times — and he's dropped 23 (37.7%) inside the opponent's 20. He also has just three touchbacks, good for the fifth-best rate overall (4.9%) and his lowest since 2022 (1.4%).

Wright has an easy time likening his success as a punter to his strife as a golfer because they're mostly mental endeavors. Regardless of if he's teeing off with his "napalm" punt or chipping with a knuckling "moon ball" or attempting to find the green from the fairway with a "banana ball" that spins sideways, his key is his preparation — the 100 drops and repeated actions — and a confidence he won't be denied.

Daniels commented ahead of the Week 18 finale "that's been a big thing for him, just in terms of the mental preparation along with the physical preparation that really goes into an entire season of punting."

"I think he's done an unbelievable job, really, having his growth mindset, taking each rep as his own, being very critical of himself," Daniels said. "I can tell him that one punt is good in my book, and he'll say 'That's not good enough.' And so the standard is very, very high for this guy, and that's really what you want out of your punter, out of all your specialists, honestly. Again, these guys — they drive the bus.

"I think that 'Mr. Wright' has truly taken a huge step forward for his career, and the growth, the development," he continued. "Just watching him [throughout] Year 4, it obviously has been one of his best years. And you just really appreciate the consistency that he's really shown week-in and week-out."

Wright swings his mind, like his thundering right leg, to the supreme confidence nourishing his play.

"It's always me vs. me," Wright expressed. "I believe in what I do. I believe that when I'm at my best, there's nothing a team can do to get a good return. And that's not just me, either. That's the gunners (Felton and Tavierre Thomas), that's the protection, that's the whole op — every person on the field."