I would not have taken a punter at all. Punter and kicker are two positions where there are plenty of serviceable & cheap options both in free agency every year and undrafted players. What happens if you need an offensive lineman mid season? You're crap out of luck.
Need a kicker? Walsh, Novak, Barth, Rose are all still unsigned. Vinatieri (and a host of other great K/P) went undrafted.
Need a punter? Donnie Jones ranked 6th/11th/16th in net punting the last three years. He's still unsigned.
In general, for other positions, the problems with free agency is that it is A) Expensive, B) you're getting older, not younger, and C) the quality of talent is lower because they were essentially not good enough to stay with their current team.
None of those are issues with special teams players. Even in free agency they are very cheap, plus kickers/punters age more gracefully than any other position, and the level of talent between a free agency kicker compared to a signed kicker is extremely slim relative to any other position like QB/lineman/WR/etc. Can Novak beat a top kicker (say Gano?) in a kicking contest on any given day? For sure. Can a free agent WR beat Julio Jones? Lol. There's no comparison. It's far more valuable to take a shot on potential stars later in the draft. Every year 2-5 pro-bowlers are taken in the 5th round or later. These aren't just servicable starters - they're stars.
These are all very good reasons but my biggest complaint is that YOU NEVER GAIN VALUE ON THE PICK!!! If this punter works out, great! But you are getting him at near max-value. You saved maybe $2M/year. Top punters make $2M-$4M/year. So you have him under contract for a few years and getting maybe a few million in savings. But that's only if he develops into a top punter. If he's servicable then you didn't save much at all.
How does this compare to other positions? Look at the pro-bowlers from recent drafts that were picked in the 5th round. Tyreek Hill made the pro-bowl and has been a high-impact player for the Chiefs. He is getting paid < $1M per year while his value to the team might be in the $7M-$10M/year range. That's a huge amount of value gained for that pick. The problem with drafting special teams players is you're capping out the potential value of that pick. I would MUCH rather take a swing at a starter like Howard or Hill (both drafted in the 5th round) and find an undrafted punter than waste a draft pick on a punter by taking him at max value.
I think you make some good points, but you're assuming a lot. You're picking out the one or two round 5 exceptions and acting as if that's the rule; that the Packers could have gotten a perennial pro bowler in round 5 because it's happened a handful of times in the last several years. That's like saying, "Why did the Packers take a kicker round 7 when there are guys like Donald Driver and Tom Brady out there!?"
Yes... if the Packers had the choice between Tyreek Hill or JK Scott, I would pick Hill. But that wasn't the choice. The choice was JK Scott, a guy who will play every single game and solve a significant Special Teams problem, or a player who
might be on the roster in 3-4 seasons, much less September.
Here's a list of the Packers' 5th round draft choices for the last decade:
Bolded = Did not play in the NFL last year
Underlined = Currently active but not on the GBP
2017:
DeAngelo Yancey WR (practice squad... incomplete, but looks like a bust so far), Aaron Jones RB (incomplete)
2016: Trevor Davis WR (bust)
2015: Brett Hundley QB (bust)
2014: Corey Linsley C (below average starter)
2013:
Micha Hyde DB,
Josh Boyd DT
2012:
Terrell Manning LB
2011:
DJ Williams TE
2010:
Andrew Quarless TE,
Marshall Newhouse, T
2009:
Quinn Johnson FB,
Jamon Meredith G
2008:
Breno Giacomini T
So in the last 10 years GB has had zero pro bowlers picked out of round 5. Of those 14 picks, 2 (Linsley - even though he is not very good- and Hyde) maybe 3 (incomplete grade for Jones) have worked out to be anything worth more than special teams players, although one could argue that Hyde's biggest contribution was special teams...
I suppose had the Packers not drafted a punter, based off their last decade of drafting, they had a 21% chance of picking a player who would have turned out to maybe start one day (and that's counting Aaron Jones and Hyde as a starter).
It stands to reason that Scott will have a greater impact than 90% of the above list, and could possibly be the only probowler selected in round 5 by green bay in the last decade- scouting certainly makes it seem like he's got the talent to do it. Time will tell. But as I mentioned above, you're acting as if they passed up a huge major game changing talent in favor of a punter. And that's simply not the case. They passed up a lottery ticket that may or may not even make the final roster for a player that fills a starting need day 1. I'd say that's value.