Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I wrote about punting in another thread earlier today. It got me thinking about a post I made on a different forum several years ago. It was in a thread where we discussed who should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 2014. I hadn't looked at the post in more than four years because I was since banned from that forum. It took some digging but I was able to find it. What happened was somebody wrote, "(Ray Guy) also doubled the punts Inside 20 over anyone else playing in his era." I wanted to use statistics to find out whether or not that was true.


Inside the 20 stats began to be officially kept during the 1976 season which was Guy's 4th season. I have four seasons which I have all the punting data and can easily compare Guy to others. For the other seven seasons, I have Guy's numbers but this is in a register and it would be tedious to look up the numbers of the other punters in those seasons.

1978-
Guy- 83 total punt plays, 81 not counting blocks
14 touchbacks (tied for league lead with Dave Green)
2 blocked
38 returned for 309 yards
23 inside the 20

other punters with at least 23 punts inside the 20:
Glen Walker- 26 (85 punts)
Pat McInally- 25 (91 punts)
John James- 24 (110 punts)
Bucky Dilts- 23 (96 punts)
Mike Bragg- 23 (104 punts)



1980-
Guy- 71 punts
14 touchbacks (third in league behind Greg Cater's 16 and Larry Swider's 15)
0 blocked
34 returned for 268 yards
18 inside the 20

10 other punters had at least 18 punts inside the 20 in 1980. John James (79 punts) led the league with 25 inside the 20.



1981-
Guy- 96 punts
15 touchbacks (2nd in league behind Craig Colquitt's 16)
0 blocked
45 returned for 514 yards
23 inside the 20

other punters with at least 23 punts inside the 20-
Bob Parsons- 31 (114 punts)
Chuck Ramsey- 27 (81 punts)
Craig Colquitt- 25 (84 punts)


1984-
Guy- 91 punts
12 touchbacks (2nd in league behind Jim Arnold's 13)
0 blocked
34 returned for 345 yards
25 inside the 20 (2nd in league behind Dave Finzer's 26; Finzer had 6 fewer punts)


Guy's numbers since the league began to record more detailed punting statistics-
1976: (67 punts) 15 TB, 264 return yards, 13 inside the 20
1977: (59 punts) 14 TB, 217 return yards, 11 inside the 20
1978: (81 punts) 14 TB, 309 return yards, 23 inside the 20
1979: (69 punts) 8 TB, 416 return yards, 16 inside the 20
1980: (71 punts) 14 TB, 268 return yards, 18 inside the 20
1981: (96 punts) 15 TB, 514 return yards, 23 inside the 20
1982: (47 punts) 3 TB, 71 return yards, 12 inside the 20
1983: (78 punts) 10 TB, 334 return yards, 17 inside the 20
1984: (91 punts) 12 TB, 345 return yards, 25 inside the 20
1985: (89 punts) 12 TB, 159 return yards, 32 inside the 20
1986: (90 punts) 11 TB, 357 return yards, 20 inside the 20

I believe the following are the league leaders for the other seven years for which I do not have a good list of all the punting stats for the given year-

John James- 28 in 1976
Mike Bragg- 29 in 1977
Bob Parsons- 26 in 1979
Dave Jennings- 16 in 1982
Jeff Hayes and Dave Jennings- 29 in 1983
John Kidd- 33 in 1985
Mike Saxon- 28 in 1986


Clearly, Guy did not have twice as many inside the 20 punts as any other punter every year. In fact, he never led the league in the category. As for career numbers, Jennings played from 1974-1987 and had 232 punts inside the 20. Guy played from 1973-86 and had 210 punts inside the 20. There are two years of missing data for Jennings and three years of missing data for Guy.

It looks like Guy allowed fewer return yardage than the league average. There was more coffin corner punting and trying to not allow returns with this punter. Hence, the high touchback numbers.

We were talking about it with regard to Lechler in the PHOF thread, but here are the charts for what I call the 60-yard punting rule, which is a theory I am developing which states that when a team's line of scrimmage is 60 yards from the end zone they are punting towards, the punting average drops off like a ski slope.

Here is the raw data from all Broncos games played in Denver versus road games 1960-2017 (I think I am missing one Broncos game for which I do not have a gamebook) with distance from line of scrimmage to the goal line the team is punting toward in yards (X-axis) versus punting average (Y-axis):



However, if you group the X (LOS) data into 15-yard groups (85-99 yards, 84-98, etc.) and graph aggregate data versus punting average, the lines get much smoother:



The data for Mile High versus Broncos road games 1960-2000, with the same 15-yard groups:



The data for Invesco Field versus Broncos road games 2001-2017, with the same 15-yard groups:



The punting advantage is clearly a little bit higher at Invesco Field than at Mile High Stadium.

Finally, the data for Heinz Field versus Steelers road games 2001-2017, 15-yard groups:



As you can tell, the Steelers and their opponents had a very slight disadvantage punting in Heinz Field, less than a yard.

Inside 20 is where the ball is returned to NOT where is kicked to. It's a great punt coverage team stats, but a lousy stat for punters.

JWL wrote:

Clearly, Guy did not have twice as many inside the 20 punts as any other punter every year. [/i]

You data is right, he never led in that, but going back pre-1976 he was 2nd in net punting in 1973, 1st in 1974 and either 1st or 2nd in 1975, (need some Redskins data to be sure) after that he as 7th, 4th, 4th, 12th then 2nd.

He was very consistent for that era. His calling card was not his in the 20 kicks, it was hang time. That's what Madden wanted most.

Rupert Patrick wrote:
The punting advantage is clearly a little bit higher at Invesco Field than at Mile High Stadium.

And that makes sense and was talked about at the time. In 1973 the NFL leader (by my research) in net punting was Billy Van Heusen, Guy was 2nd and he, like all Denver punters get half a season with an advantage.

http://nflfootballjournal.blogspot.com/ ... istic.html

It shows some outstanding seasons, though it's not compelte, I need to get to Canton to fill some holes.

It seems to me that the number of punts inside the 20 says a lot more about the punting team's field position and its punt coverage skills than it does about the punter's skills.

TodMaher wrote:Inside 20 is where the ball is returned to NOT where is kicked to. It's a great punt coverage team stats, but a lousy stat for punters.

Yes, absolutely. The guy on that other forum was lost. For the sake of arguing with me, I simply went along and documented inside the 20 statistics.

If Mike Saxon punts the ball to the 2 and Terance Mathis returns it 98 yards for a touchdown, it probably was not really a bad punt by Saxon. He would not get much credit for punting the ball to the 2. Now, had the punt been downed at the 2 or if it rolled out of bounds at the 2, then Saxon would have looked really good on the play.

JWL wrote:
If Mike Saxon punts the ball to the 2 and Terance Mathis returns it 98 yards for a touchdown, it probably was not really a bad punt by Saxon. He would not get much credit for punting the ball to the 2. Now, had the punt been downed at the 2 or if it rolled out of bounds at the 2, then Saxon would have looked really good on the play.

Well, possibly, but history of watching shows punters don't kick it that far without outkicking coverage. It's possible, if angled right, but usually it's kicking it further than normal coverage guys can get there. Always going to be exceptions...like in all football stats.

But the best way would be to grade each punt, time it, etc...but that's not possible for old games. It is now, but the way PFF does it is odd...I've seen almost all of some kickers' punts and I grade them differently, that's for sure.