Impact of touchbacks and downing inside the 20
And some Jordan Stout data and clips
I think this is my third article on punters which is probably approaching the football analytics equivalent of being the crazy cat person. But I remain undeterred…
A few weeks ago I wrote on why it makes sense to draft a punter, when in the draft, and why I think Penn State’s Jordan Stout may be not only the best in this draft class, but the best in several years.
“Drafting a Punter Makes Analytical Sense… And Yes, This Year There is a Punt God”
I also wrote on why the key measure used in analyzing football -Expected Points Added or EPA – is not a good indicator for evaluating a punt. The decision to punt and where on the field the punt is from outweigh anything a punter can do – for example, punting on 4th-and-1 in plus territory is going to be bad from an EPA perspective no matter how good of a punt occurs.
But we all hear about “flipping the field” and “pinning the opponent back” and I wanted to look into how a good (or bad) punt affects actual game scoring.
How “good” punts impact actual scoring
In the post mentioned above, I used what Puntalytics (@ThePuntRunts) created to value punts – an EPA+ measure, or the value of a punt above or below what the average historical punt from that same field position has generated. Using punt EPA+, you can categorize good, average, and bad punts and then see how they impacted scoring on the opponent’s next drive.
This uses data from over 28,000 punts between 2010 to 2021 by field location (further to the right is punting closer to their own endzone and to the left is closer to the opponent’s). I only looked at punts outside the opponent’s 40 yardline for this as these extreme plus-field punts get messy (more on that next). The green dataset represent “average” punts (or the middle quintile), the orange dataset are “bad” punts (bottom quintile), and the blue are “good” punts (top quintile).
A few things stand out. Punt quality absolutely impacts the opponent’s ability to score on their next possession. This difference is greater near a punting team’s own endzone and gets smaller as they move into plus territory.
- Punting near your own endzone, top quintile (top 20%) punts suppress an opponent’s actual scoring by near 0.7 points vs. average punts and over 1.3 points vs. the bottom quintile (bad) punts.
- Punting near midfield, this difference is about half of the above with top punts suppressing opponent scoring by 0.3 points vs. average punts and almost 0.6 points vs. bad punts.
With an average of almost four punts per game in the NFL, a consistently good punter can impact the game by +1 to +3 points vs. average punters, depending on the field location. And if you have a bad punter, upgrading to a top punter can make a +3 to +5 point impact.
Note on subsequent drive impact: I was curious if good (or bad) punts had a carryover to the receiving team’s second or third drive after the punt or to the punting team’s next possession after the punt. There is a small positive impact to both the punting team’s next drive (+0.15 point difference between good and bad punts) and to the receiving team’s second drive after receiving (+0.12), but neither of these are statistically significant.
Impact of touchbacks and downing inside the 20
Coaches have learned that they should punt way less often when they are in plus territory, going for it on 4th down almost 20% more since 2010 when at midfield or better, with most of the improvement coming since 2015.
But when they do punt (still about 57% of the time), how much are short-field punts worth? Short-field punts (defined as a punt from midfield or closer) are much less common – in 2021, teams averaged 0.6 short-field punts per game. There is great variation among teams, though, with Arizona only kicking two short-field punts all season while Seattle had 19 (the Eagles were just above league average with 12).
Just like the above, short-field punts have an impact on the ability of the receiving team to score on that drive. Punters that put the ball into the endzone for a touchback give the receiving team an expected 1.49 points per drive. Downing between the 11-20 yardline is the same. But a punter that can consistently either down or coffin-corner a kick inside the 10 yard line suppresses an opponent’s scoring by 0.12 to 0.54 points.
| Punt Result | Avg Points Scored on Opponent’s Next Drive | Avg Points Scored on Punting Team’s Next Drive |
| Downed inside 5 yard line | 0.95 | 2.29 |
| Downed between 6-10 yard line | 1.37 | 2.20 |
| Downed between 11-20 yard line | 1.51 | 2.15 |
| Touchback (20 yard line start) | 1.49 | 1.82 |
But with short-field punts, there is also a carryover benefit to the punting team on their next possession after the receiving team’s possession. When pinning the receiving team inside the 10 or 20 yardline, a punting team, on average, has a quarter-point higher scoring rate on their next possession after the receiving team’s possession. This supports the “pin an opponent back” view.
And some Jordan Stout punting…
If you read my prior punting post, you know I believe Penn State’s Jordan Stout could be not only the best punter in this draft class, but the best punter to come out of college in several years.
He is the only draftable punter that projects to a positive EPA+. And he is one of four punters with above average short-field punting stats – in 2021, he had 37 punts downed inside the 20 vs. 3 touchbacks, an elite 12.3-to-1 ratio (the NFL average is just over 6-to-1).
And this is why Stout is so good…
Against Villanova Stout put all 4 of his punts inside the 20. Here he kicks from the Nova 46, into the corner, lands the ball at the 4 and has it die:
In one of his best games of the year against Illinois, 6 of his 8 punts were downed inside the 20 – this one goes 57 yards in the air from his own 39 and again lands and dies at the 4:
The PSU/Rutgers game may have been the punting Super Bowl last year, with Stout and Adam Korsak going head-to-head and punting a total of 18 times. Stout out-punted Korsak, putting 7 of his 8 punts inside the 20. This, one of my favorites, looks like a deep pass. Stout lofts the ball from the Rutgers 41 into the corner where 37 catches it on the fly at the 2.
Again against Rutgers, this time Stout with the hesi before hitting Keaton Ellis on the fly, another short-field punt that is downed at the 3.
And lastly against Michigan State, in the snow, Stout again puts all 3 of his punts inside the 20 – this one with another amazing effort by 37 on the assist to push it out of bounds at the 1.
In his 2021 season, Stout punted 67 times and had:
- 37 downed inside the 20 with 3 touchbacks (1st in the draft class)
- 47 total return yards (13th in the NCAA)
- 46.1 gross yardage (6th) and 44.6 net yardage (1st)
- 4.34 average hangtime (1st)
Eagles, go draft him.