Dustin ColquittYesterday, in Part I, I set the table for my argument that Dustin Colquitt is the best punter in the NFL this season. I originally planned all this information in a single post, but ultimately, I realized it was too important to make sure the reader understood the whole “gross yardage” issue. Besides, Colquitt deserves to be more than a footnote. So, this post is dedicated to the Chiefs best player.
I will do more posts on punting and how to measure it, so I won’t address any of those macro issues here – except to suggest you read the previous post if you haven’t.
I want to make sure to reiterate that a major emphasis of the other post was to show why gross yardage is not only a misleading statistic, but a very wrong one – in many cases a negative. Yet the NFL, AP and every organization tends to rank punters by gross yardage.
Assuming 10+ punts so far in 2009, Colquitt ranks #18 with a 44.0 average. Therefore, it may seem absurd (if not extreme homerism) to say he is the best punter so far this season. Well, I’m saying it and it has nothing to do with being a Chiefs fan. It has to do with facts.
I’m going to use another punter for an example.
Colquitt vs Jason Baker (Carolina)
Colquitt is #18 by gross yardage, Baker is #4. Colquitt averages 44.0 gross yards per punt, Baker averages 48.4. Unfortunately, only sophisticated people (like those that read UFR) would realize that Colquitt is having the better season.
Again, gross yards are the yards the punt travels. But, if a punt is returned, those yards are subtracted. What you have left is net yards. If a punt goes into the end zone for a touchback, you subtract those yards also to get net yards. So, what really matters is net yards. Purely on that score, Colquitt has a net average of 42.0 compared to Baker’s 34.6.
But, net yardage isn’t the only variable. All of the categories are part of net yardage in one way or another, but they are worth pointing out individually.
NY – Net Yards per punt
PR – Percentage of punts returned
AR – Average return yards per punt
NG – Net yardage as a percentage of Gross yardage
P2 – Percentage of punts inside the 20
2T – Ratio of punts inside the 20 compared to touchbacks
First the raw stats, then the NFL rankings of both punters.
| Punter | NY | PR | AR | NG | P2 | 2T |
| Colquitt | 42.0 | 39% | 1.1 | 95% | 39% | 8.0 |
| Baker | 34.6 | 56% | 9.6 | 71% | 28% | 2.5 |
| Punter | NY | PR | AR | NG | P2 | 2T |
| Colquitt | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 7 |
| Baker | 28 | 25 | 32 | 33 | 23 | 24 |
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Needless to say, Colquitt is having an enormously better year so far than Baker. However, on any list that shows gross yardage, Baker is near the top – way above Colquitt.
There are misleading statistics in sports – time of possession for example in the NFL. There are others in other sports. But, there is no statistic that even comes close to gross yardage in punting that I can think of – especially considering it is the “standard” for measuring a punter. I sure hope GMs are smarter than that.
---- Just thought of one. It would be like rating closers in baseball by the number of wins they have. Sounds good on the surface, but the only way you get a win in the first place is if you blew the save and your hitters bailed you out.
FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS
I’m not sure exactly how they measure it, but the only other analytical ranking I can find for punters (admittedly, not looking very hard) is Football Outsiders. Here is a link to their list. It is done by team, but Kansas City ranks #1 on it as well.
THE TOP PUNTERS IN 2009
I will dig much deeper into punting stats in the future, but for the sake of simplicity and brevity in this post, I’m going to say that all of the six categories above are of equal value. I realize Net Yardage is more important than any of the others individually, however, all of the others contribute to NY so it gets more weight anyway. But, I don’t want to dwell on that right now.
I also want to say that I’m opposed to simply adding rankings (in DQ’s case it would be 3+5+1+1+9+7=26) because it takes the easy way out by not making a distinction between which of the categories is more important and, thus weighing them differently. However, when you don’t know enough to weigh them (and that is true at the moment), adding the ranks is a reasonable back-of-the-envelope way of doing it.
Base on that, Colquitt’s 26 is #1 in the NFL. Here are the top 8. First, I will show their gross yardage ranking (GYR).
| Punter | Team | GYR |
| 1.Dustin Colquitt | Kansas City | 18 |
| 2.Hunter Smith | Washington | 22 |
| 3.Brad Maynard | Chicago | 23 |
| 4.Mike Scifres | San Diego | 5 |
| 5.Dave Zastudil | Cleveland | 16 |
| 6.Jeff Feagles | N.Y. Giants | 27 |
| 7.Mat McBriar | Dallas | 9 |
| 8.Chris Kluwe | Minnesota | 21 |
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This group is slightly worse than average by gross yardage.
Now, here they are based upon the six good categories.
| Punter | NY | PR | AR | NG | P2 | 2T | TOT |
| Colquitt | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 7 | 26 |
| Smith | 9 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 12 | 39 |
| Maynard | 13 | 19 | 13 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 51 |
| Scifres | 2 | 22 | 21 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 58 |
| Zastudil | 15 | 3 | 11 | 15 | 3 | 13 | 60 |
| Feagles | 21 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 4 | 11 | 63 |
| McBriar | 6 | 26 | 18 | 10 | 1 | 5 | 66 |
| Kluwe | 16 | 17 | 16 | 12 | 6 | 9 | 76 |
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The single best correlative stat to these overall rankings is P2 – Percentage of punts inside the 20. All eight of these punters are in the top-10 of that category. Of the above, the worst correlative stat is PR – Percentage of punts returned. But, even that stat correlates far better than gross yardage.
COLQUITT’s CAREER
Shown is his rank by the six categories (excluding gross yardage) and his overall ranking among punters in the NFL by my down and dirty formula.
| Season | NY | PR | AR | NG | P2 | 2T | Rank |
| 2009 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 7 | #1 |
| 2008 | 7 | 11 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 16 | #7 |
| 2007 | 5 | 23 | 16 | 12 | 26 | 25 | #19 |
| 2006 | 1 | 12 | 10 | 5 | 14 | 7 | #5 |
| 2005 | 4 | 11 | 11 | 6 | 5 | 4 | #3 |
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The Chiefs don’t have much to be thankful for, but considering how bad the offense is and how often they have to give the ball up, we can be glad we’ve got such a good punter.
Some people like statistics. Some people hate statistics. Some people poke fun at them ("There are lies, there are damned lies and there are statistics.")
Some times the mind numbs and the eyes glaze over when perusing piecnes about statistics.
As for Dustin Colquitt and other punters, perhaps somebody should devise a field position category; that seems to be the most appropriate measure of a punter's accomplishment. If a punter can consistently put the other team at disadvantage by making them start their possessions close to their own goal line, then a punter is a dominant player.
This seems a little old fashioned but still effective. Years from now would people look back and say "Oh, yeah, old Colquitt, he had a net return average of 3 yards.", or would they say "That Colquitt, he always kept those bas***** down near their own goal line."
To me it is kind of like reflecting on Whitey Ford. I can't recall his stats but that he played for the Yankees, he won a lot of games and had a helluva pickoff move. You don't see that kind of craftiness in baseball anymore, yet it was likely a valuable part of his arsenal. Perhaps it is not used these days because it doesn't have a recognized statistical category, or maybe pitching coaches neglect it.
In any case, except to settle bar bets, as long as Colquitt receives the recognition due him, the statistics seem not to matter too much.