*Ztarwarz criticizes Awards

[BloomeyGB]

1. Dougie Smalls, Punter of the Year (More deserving candidates: Matthew McDairmid, Blago Kokot)

This one isn't a contest. Smalls had the 3rd best average punt distance. He did lead the league in punts inside the 20, but there is a very important reason for that: He punted the ball 89 times. The closest guy to him had 81 punts. Unlike Caliban, who had an average season on gargantuan usage, Smalls had a pretty strong season on a lot of usage. The problem? Kokot had a full yard on him in average and had about 4% higher average punts inside the 20. And Kokot wasn't the guy who should have won. McDairmid put 36 of his 70 punts, over HALF of his punts, inside the 20, led Kokot by about half a yard and Smalls by a yard and a half on punt average, and had a longer long punt than Smalls anyways. The fact that Smalls won this award over McDairmid is nothing short of a travesty.

In my view, the problem here is that people have absolutely no idea about how punting stats actually work. All they see is a few rows of numbers, and fail to contextualise them. Unfortunately for most of the punters in the league, this will mean constant uncertainty over awards, all because people don't look at the bigger picture.