The most underrated part of football, without question, is special teams. Everyone talks about offense and defense, but the transition between the two is just as important. The 2010 Chargers had the best offense and defense in the league, but finished 9-7 and didn’t even make the playoffs. That’s a real stat. The reason? They had the worst special teams in the league.
This page aims to look at some punting and kick coverage stats (the latter is coming soon), and find who is making a difference on special teams.
Hunting for Good Punting
Punting is not discussed enough. Football is a game of field position, and a good punt can flip the field or pin an opponent deep. We are going to look at two metrics for punting:
- Expected Points Added (EPA)
- Here at crashboards, we love EPA. It’s a great way to analyze the value of field position, which is at the heart of what makes a good punt.
- This is a direct metric of how much value a punter is bringing to a team.
- Good Punt Percentage
- This is the percentage of a player’s punts that are “good”. We are defining good as ending inside the 20 yard line, OR flipping the field with a punt of more than 45 yards (the league average).
- This is all about consistency. We’ve all seen punters that shank every third punt, and that can cripple a tight game.
Here is EPA and Good Punt Percentage for the last 10 seasons, for punters with at least 200 punts:
The further up you are on this graph, the more value you are giving the team with each punt. Notably, some punters actually add expected points for their team despite giving the ball to the other team.
The further to the right you are, the more consistent you are. Some punters, like Cole and Dickson, either flip the field or pin the other team deep on more than 80% of their punts!
2025 Punters
That was the last 10 seasons, now let’s look at the current season:
(aesthetically pleasing logos replaced with team colored bubbles to speed up load time.)