Back at it with a look at the 2023 punter class!
2022 was an all-time great class with four punters drafted, including Jordan Stout and Jake Camarda taken in the 4th round. It was the highest amount of draft capital used on punters – almost double the average – and we can expect 2-3 of the 2022 punters to be among the league’s bests for many years.
After 2022, I expected a down year and while it will be difficult to match last year, this class is better than I initially thought. Teams in need of a punter have a few very good options.
If you didn’t read my punter articles from last year, I will summarize how I look at punters and what matters in projecting college prospects to the pros:
It’s not about the big ball
Average NFL punters have hangtimes in the 4.3s while the best punters average in the 4.4s or above.
Well, not “just” about the big ball – distance of course matters. A lot of college punters have the distance but few pair it with a pro-level hangtime. And punts without hangtime get killed because pro return units are too good.
Listen to Britain Covey after the Titans game when he had his best game of the season with 105 yards on 6 returns: “I’m not a different player now than I was 10 hours ago. When someone out-kicks his coverage with 4.2 hang time, you have to take advantage.” Take a look at Covey’s three 20+ yard returns that game and where coverage units were as he caught the ball:
Pinning is winning
Punts downed inside the 10 result in half a point of scoring advantage over touchbacks, punts inside the 5 yard line are worth over a full point
While punting on short-fields is decreasing in frequency, punts that pin deep have under-recognized value. Last year I looked at the effect of punts on actual in-game scoring and found that punts downed inside the 10 yard line both suppress the opponents scoring on their next drive and result in higher scoring rates on the punting team’s subsequent drive.
The 2023 punter class
Below shows average hangtime and punt distance for the 2023 punter class (green), the 2022 class (blue), and all punters since 2015 (grey). The top right quadrant is obviously where you want to be, where punters are pairing both distance and hangtime.
A few points on this year’s rookie punters:
- Except for Trenton Gill, all had college hangtimes above 4.1 seconds and each further raised their rookie season hangtime above 4.3 seconds
- Again except for Gill, they all had college distances of 46 yards or better
- Jordan Stout, Trenton Gill, and Ryan Wright had elite “Inside 20 to Touchback” ratios (Stout at 12:1, Gill 7:1, and Wright 6:1)
Where does the 2023 class land and who is interesting for the draft? To me, there are three or four draftable punters in this class, a couple that will should have their name called mid day 3.
Michael Turk, Oklahoma
Anybody that has a Twitter handle of @HangtimeYT is going to be on my list. Add to it his trick shots including home run punts and knocking a stuck ball out of the gym rafters and he’s my guy.
But he’s not just trick shots. If you just look for punters with at least 46 yards and 4.1 seconds of hangtime, there’s only one punter in the FBS – Turk.
As good as he is, there is reason to expect more from Turk. He comes from NFL specialist bloodlines – one uncle made three Pro Bowls over a 17-year career punting and another had a 15-year pro career as a long snapper.
And like Jordan Stout last year, Turk is the newest in this class to punting. Starting as a safety in high school, he switched to punting after three ACL tears in three years. Over 4 seasons at Arizona and Oklahoma he has been one of college’s best, and most consistent, punters. With only 179 real, in-game career punts, he will continue to improve.
He will be drafted and is worth a pick in round 4 or 5.
Brad Robbins, Michigan
Maybe better known for his 1880s-era mustache, Robbins is probably the most pro-ready punter in this class. His very good 2022 season was even better than it appeared as he was clearly not himself after an injury in the Michigan State game. His pre and post injury splits show the level he can really hit:
Pre-injury: 19 punts, 47.6 average distance, 4.37 average hangtime
Post-injury: 25 punts, 41.0 average distance, 4.21 average hangtime, and his only career blocked punt
Add in his 2021 season where he averaged 46.4 yards and a 4.30 hangtime and he makes a case, like Turk, to be drafted somewhere in rounds 4 or 5 and battle for P1 in this class.
Bryce Baringer, Michigan State
Another from Michigan, Baringer and Robbins battled in the Big 10. Baringer leads the nation in distance with a 49.0 yard average and adds one of the better short-field abilities in this class. While I value hangtime a lot and Baringer doesn’t stand out here, when you watch him, he absolutely has the ability. He showed this off at the Senior Bowl when he launched a 4.92 second, 47 yard punt that was fair caught at the 7 with his coverage unit there, waiting for the ball to come down.
Ethan Evans, Wingate
If you haven’t heard of Ethan Evans or Wingate, you probably aren’t alone. Wingate is a D-II school in North Carolina that plays in the South Atlantic Conference.
I have to give full credit to @IsaacPunts for the work on Evans. Because Evans is D-II, both data and film are severely lacking and I almost solely relied on box scores, some sparse YouTube clips, and breakdowns by Isaac. I don’t want to try to repeat Isaac’s great breakdown – if you have 2 minutes, give it a watch:
His stats put him right with the top punters in this class with a 4.11 average hangtime and second-best 46.4 average distance. Does he get drafted? I would say “yes”, but I don’t know how teams will look at a D-II prospect even though it doesn’t mean as much for specialists.
He should be drafted and deserves to be – if he doesn’t hear his name called, several teams will be calling him quickly in the UDFA signing period.
Adam Korsak
Every time I talk about punters, I anger the Rutgers faithful when I don’t have Korsak as my top punter. And over time, I may end up looking like a fool leaving this year’s Ray Guy Award winner off which would be fine.
Korsak is absolutely elite with placement and short-field punts. Two stats that I can’t stress how silly they are:
- He has put 153 career punts inside the 20 vs. only 7 touchbacks (a 22:1 ratio)
- This season he had 8 punts returned for a total of MINUS 2 yards, a -0.3 Y/R average
Everybody should read those again because of how good those stats are. As a comparison, the nation’s most accurate – and my top – punter last year was Jordan Stout and Korsak’s inside 20 ratio is twice Stout’s.
My issue is he has never averaged above a 3.8 second hangtime. I charted all of his punts to see if it was due to usage like a higher-than-normal number of short-field punts. But it isn’t. Only 6 of his 77 punts were short-field. And he has one of the lowest percentage of punts over 46 yards on open field punts (open field is where you can just rear back and boom the ball) at just 30%. As a comparison, last year Stout and Camarda were both at 47%, Stonehouse was at 58%. This year Baringer is at 67%, Robbins 50%, and Turk 51%.
If you were a team that punted a lot on short-fields, Korsak would be P1. But the issue is the league is punting less and less from short-fields as teams get more aggressive on 4th down. And he just isn’t showing the distance or hangtime on open field punts.
He will be a pro, I just don’t think there’s any way he goes over the above guys and not sure he gets drafted. If you watch him, Korsak has an unorthodox style, at times moves around, holding back, looking like he is seeking where to put the ball. And he is very, very good at it. But what he does best is becoming a smaller and smaller part of NFL punting.
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