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*Critically Examining Punter of the Year - Baron1898 - 04-12-2020 Special teams: you either love them or you’re a heartless bastard. As we all know, the annual award of Punter of the Year is the most prestigious award given out... or it would be, if awards voters actually paid attention to special teams longer than five seconds before automatically handing off spots to the players they recognize the most. Seeing as how the league’s leading yardage punter of last year wasn’t even nominated for contention over two punters inferior in every metric, it’s time to take matters into my own hands, earn some money, and look over the performances of each punter in the league for the S21 season. Punters’ cases can all be grouped together into two superficial categories: those with better arguments based on gross volume, and those with better arguments based on gross average. As a matter of fact, you can semi-neatly cleave the ten qualified (sorry ForThe Brand, but no one with 11 punts all season is going to win Punter of the Year) punters into these two categories. The Volume Guys Venus Powers: 93 punts, 4335 yards, 46.6 avg, 21 in20, 73 long Diego Espinosa: 73 punts, 3398 yards, 46.5 avg, 13 in20, 66 long Herbert Prohaska: 71 punts, 3291 yards, 46.4 avg, 10 in20, 71 long J.J. “Jay” Jay-Jaymison: 89 punts, 4056 yards, 45.6 avg, 15 in20, 71 long Silver Banana: 82 punts, 3652 yards, 44.5 avg, 15 in20, 64 long Kicky Bobby: 78 punts, 3405 yards, 43.7 avg, 11 in20, 62 long There’s not much contest here. Venus Powers obliterates the rest of these punters in every category. Volume and efficiency are the twin poles of a punter’s case, and if you can’t be better than someone else in either of them, you don’t have a realistic shot. The Efficiency Guys Alex D.: 74 punts, 3568 yards, 48.2 avg, 15 in20, 74 long Alfredo Crisco: 75 punts, 3590 yards, 47.9 avg, 14 in20, 75 long Kulture Fulture: 73 punts, 3470 yards, 47.5 avg, 11 in20, 67 long Dougie Smalls: 78 punts, 3682 yards, 47.2 avg, 7 in20, 71 long This is definitely a closer debate, but it’s still pretty lopsided. Fulture is the first to go, as the veteran kicker and future HOFer was outpaced by Alex D. in every stat. Crisco owns the longest punt, but the meaningfulness of that statistic is less than zero, and his 1 punt and 22 yards over Alex D. drags down his efficiency quite a bit. Dougie Smalls puts up the best shot, but is a full yard behind in gross average yardage, and has the least pins inside the 20 of any punter who played more than 2 games. Alex D. is the efficiency king of S21. Or so he seems. Looking Deeper Venus Powers: 93 punts, 4335 yards, 46.6 avg, 21 in20, 73 long Alex D.: 74 punts, 3568 yards, 48.2 avg, 15 in20, 74 long This is a classic debate — volume or efficiency? Most people tend to prefer efficiency, and thus would favor the odds of Alex D. here, but anyone who evaluates punters beyond the surface level knows that gross punting yards and average, while fine enough to winnow down the list of contenders, are a poor metric indeed to hang Punter of the Year upon. And thus it’s time to introduce some other metrics. — — — In20% — simply the percentage of punts that pin the opponent inside their own 20 yard line, which adjusts the raw In20 numbers for volume. Let’s compare our contenders: Powers: 22.58% Alex D.: 20.27% Even after this adjustment for volume, Venus Powers has the advantage. — — — Return% — the percentage of punts that are returned by the opposing team’s punt returner. A lower percentage is favorable, since it decreases the return yardage and thus worsens the opponent’s starting field position. Let’s compare our contenders: Powers: 33.33% Alex D.: 25.68% Volume isn’t a valid argument since it is measured in percentage, so Alex D. has the advantage. — — — Touchback% — the percentage of a punter’s attempts that result in a touchback. This automatically gives the opposing team a start at the 20 yard line and, although touchbacks prevent returns, a lower touchback percentage is favorable because it conversely increases the chance of pinning the opponent deep. Let’s compare our contenders: Powers: 30.11% Alex D.: 40.54% By a pretty sizable margin, Venus Powers has the advantage. — — — Net Yard Average — the gross yardage minus the return yardage, divided by the number of punts. Gross yardage is meaningless for measuring a punter’s impact on the field position if the resulting return yardage is not taken into account. Thus, it is more favorable to have a higher net yard average, since this corrects for the loss in field position caused by returners. Let’s compare our contenders: Powers: 43.74 avg (4068 net yards) Alex D: 45.64 avg (3377 net yards) As he did in gross average yardage, Alex D. has the advantage. It would be tempting to end the analysis here, as disappointing as it would be for me, and say that it truly was a tossup between yards and efficiency. After all, these metrics are the four metrics used in the Punt Rank posts on r/nfl that the inspiration for this post came from. Alex D. had a good, efficient season on a successful team, and would likely end up taking the crown of Punter of the Year. But I’m not done. Because this last metric - net yard average - is flawed. The Powerful Conclusion Say a punter punts from her own 40 yard line, a nice booming punt that travels 55 yards to the opponent’s 5. The opponent’s returner is able to catch it, but because the punt had a good amount of hang time, they only manage to return the ball five yards to their own 10. The punter records 55 gross punting yards and 50 net punting yards on the attempt, and the opponent is pinned at the 10. Now imagine a second scenario wherein that same punter punts the ball 60 yards into the end zone, where the returning team decides to allow it to roll back for a touchback. They then begin the drive at their own 20. The punter records 60 gross punting yards, and because there was no return on the ball, they also record 60 net punting yards. But the opponent is 10 more yards upfield than in scenario 1. Clearly the first situation is more ideal for the punting team and is by all accounts a better punt - the opponent is in a worse field position because of the punter’s accuracy - but the second situation gives the punter a higher net yardage purely because it fails to account for the lost yardage off of the touchback. This is the problem with net yardage in its basic form; it does not account for the impact of touchbacks and penalizes punters who put their team in better situations. So here’s one final metric. Effective Net Yard Average — the gross yardage minus the return yardage and touchback yardage, divided by the number of punts. Since each touchback gives 20 yards of field position to the returning team, effectively as if they had fielded it at the zero and returned it to the 20, 20 yards are subtracted from the yardage for each touchback. As with net yard average, it is more favorable to have a higher effective net yard average, since this properly reflects the lost yardage from returns and touchbacks. Let’s compare our contenders: Venus Powers: 37.72 avg (3508 effnet yards) Alex D.: 37.53 avg (2777 effnet yards) After adjusting for lost yardage from touchbacks and from returns, Venus Powers has the advantage both volume wise AND efficiency wise. Alex D. had a great season, and is certainly Kicker of the Year (although that’s a different post that I’ll probably never make), but Venus Powers is without a doubt deserving of the S21 Punter of the Year. Now watch the awards group give it to Crisco or something. *Critically Examining Punter of the Year - White Cornerback - 04-12-2020 ROCKET LEG CRISCO LETS GO *Critically Examining Punter of the Year - Matty7478 - 04-12-2020 Now this is the content I am here to see, love it! *Critically Examining Punter of the Year - ADwyer87 - 04-12-2020 Powers GOATed *Critically Examining Punter of the Year - infinitempg - 04-12-2020 Powers has a serious case for Punter of the Year, no doubt. But I'm completely on board with things punters here can "control", and that is average yard per punt. In real life I think IN20 and stuff like that should get more value, but this sim is dumb and treats punters like dirt - so IN20 (and touchbacks as well) correlates only to the number of punts. Powers punted a shit ton this season - so of course it tilts in her favor when you account for touchbacks and fair catches. I think the vote will be close. Powers and Alex D have great resumes and both deserve recognition! *Critically Examining Punter of the Year - Hallmonitor_20 - 04-13-2020 Venus Powers the Biggester Leg Man