Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

In 1932, when the NFL started compiling stats, they covered four categories: rushing, receiving, passing ... and punting. A year-end release gave the leaders in each category, but I've only seen it written in paragraph form, as opposed to a list of the top five or whatever. So all I know is that Dick Nesbitt of the Bears was proclaimed the top punter, with an average of 42.4 yards; how many times he punted, I have no idea.

There wasn't much more information about the other stat leaders either -- and in fact for years there was confusion about who had led the league in rushing -- but those stats did survive in some filing cabinets somewhere, and finally saw the light of day in the first edition of Total Football. That is, the rushing, passing and receiving stats finally appeared -- but not the punting stats. As far as I know, that one mention of Nesbitt leading the league is the only trace of them.

What I'm wondering is, has anybody else ever seen any explanation of what happened? Not just for 1932, but the NFL apparently was so unsatisfied with that one category that it was dropped until it finally reappeared in 1939. I certainly can't figure it out.

Yeah, its' odd. Look at this year's Record & Fact Book. In the team records section the record for most punts in a game is 17 - and it's two games from 1933. They did publish final team averages back then, but for some odd reason they were rounded off to the nearest yard.