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- Dickson is the NFL’s highest-paid punter, signing a USD$16.2 million extension in 2025.
- He ranks in the top four in NFL history for career gross punting average at 48.3 yards.
- During the 2026 postseason, he has landed seven of his eight punts inside the 20-yard line.
- 30-year-old was a former Sydney Swans Academy player before transitioning to American football.
- He is only the second Australian to play for a Super Bowl title, following Jordan Mailata.
The Super Bowl is a rare occasion when we head into the pubs before midday, take a half day at work, and back an NFL team that we know very little about. Often, we pick that team based on history, or maybe you just like the colours. But that all changes when we have a horse in the race, and at Super Bowl LX, we have an Australian to back.
His name is Michael Dickson, and while you’ve probably never heard of the 30-year-old until now, he’s arguably the most important player on the Seattle Seahawks behind quarterback Sam Darnold.
Dickson, or “Dicko” for short (because don’t we love shortening a surname), is a punter, and a very good one at that. He signed a record-breaking 4-year, USD$16.2 million extension (USD$10.2M guaranteed) in June 2025 that made him the highest-paid punter in the league, but he’s also been named First-Team All-Pro (2018), Second-Team All-Pro (2025), and was named in the Top 50 Seahawks of All-Time. Most impressively, he’s ranked in the top three in NFL history for career gross punting average (approx. 48.3 yards).
Dickson’s Super Bowl Moment
- Teams: New England Patriots vs Seattle Seahawks
- When: Monday, 9 February 2026 (AEDT), coverage from 9:00 am, kick-off around 10:00 am AEDT
- Where: Levi’s Stadium, California
- Halftime show: Bad Bunny
- Watch in Australia: Channel 7, 7mate & 7plus (free), ESPN via Foxtel and Kayo
When we crunch the numbers, Dickson will head into the Super Bowl as one of the most accurate punters of the postseason. He’s landed seven of his eight postseason punts inside the 20-yard line with zero touchbacks. That means the opponent’s offence has no choice but to run the ball, which can force fumbles or reduce all-important yardage, thereby reducing the probability of scoring. It’s the first line of defence, if you will.
Dickson’s punt was one of the deciding factors in the NFC Championship game against the Rams, helping secure the Seahawks’ trip to the Super Bowl. He launched a 55-yard “bomb” that was so difficult to track that it forced a muffed punt return. The Seahawks recovered the ball and scored a touchdown on the very next play, which resulted in a 10-point swing. He might be the oldest tenured player on the team, but his importance to the wins, especially in pressure situations like the Super Bowl, is all-important.
Why He’s the NFL’s Highest-Paid
It was a good year to be a punter in the NFL, with a shortage of quality players, teams were throwing money at the league’s best. The Raiders signed A.J. Cole to a deal worth $3.95 million per year, the Jaguars followed and gave Logan Cooke an even $4 million per year, and then the Seahawks swooped in and gave Dickson $4.05 million annually to ensure their longest-tenured player didn’t hit free agency.
Dickson has lethal accuracy. His career average of 48.3 yards is currently one of the highest in NFL history, and even at his age, he ranked near the top of the league in “inside the 20” percentage, ruining the opponent’s momentum ahead of the drive. Statheads say that teams starting inside their own 10-yard line score on fewer than 10% of drives.
Then there’s the X factor: Dickson’s AFL skill set. His “banana kick” is notoriously difficult to catch because of its inconsistent flight path—and it’s the kick that he unleashed in the 2026 NFC Championship game. He also famously turned a blocked punt into a 68-yard gain by picking up the ball and kicking it again on the run. Still, he’s only had one punt blocked in over 550 attempts.
How He Went from Sydney to Seattle
Dickson came up through the Miranda Bombers and later the Sydney Swans Academy. However, he was a little behind his peers’ development, such as Isaac Heeney and Callum Mills.
He decided the NFL was his best chance at a career in professional sports, but his name wasn’t called in the 2014 NFL Draft. Dickson ended up working at a storage facility in Sydney after struggling to find a calling in the AFL since his return, but eventually he decided to follow the paths of people like Darren Bennett and Sav Rocca through Nathan Chapman at Prokick Australia.
With a move from Sydney to Melbourne to begin his transition to the NFL, Dickson worked hard to change his AFL “drop punt” into the high-hang-time spiral required in the NFL. Those who have watched his game closely will know that he hasn’t let go of everything, and he pulls out the occasional “banana kick” to throw off opponents. So skilled was Dickson that he was offered a scholarship to the University of Texas four months after his first trial, and he would go through a trial by fire, playing in front of 80,000 people in his first game, but going on to win the Ray Guy Award (Best Punter in College) and becoming the first punter to win a bowl game MVP in the 2017 Texas Bowl.
The Seattle Seahawks traded up to draft Dickson in the 5th round of the 2018 NFL Draft, and the rest is history.
What a Win Means for Australians in the NFL
Dickson joins a shortlist of Australian players in the NFL, and by adding a Super Bowl ring (with Jordan Mailata and Jesse Williams) he would help move the sport from a once a year “novelty” event Downunder to a more serious, and explored pathway for local talent.
It will present a problem for codes like the AFL and NRL, where players that are seemingly short of talent, can move into a larger market and earn four times more per year than the best players in the local leagues. Of course, there’s far more too it than that, including vastly different salary caps (AFL Salary Cap is roughly AUD$18 million) but Dickson earns in a year what the AFL’s highest-paid players earn combined. Michael Dickson’s personal contract value (AUD$23.4 million) is larger than the entire annual payroll of the Sydney Swans or Collingwood Magpies.
He might not be a household name today, but if Dickson secures a Super Bowl win for his Seattle Seahawks, expect plenty of fan fare moving foward.
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