Why no love for Punters?

[godtomsatan]

A punter is the result of a team sucking so badly on a series that they could not at least reach the 35 yard line of their oppponents and have to give the ball back.

 

A FG is the result of a team that can't get into the end zone. Why not throw in another facet?

 

I just don't personally care for rewarding a negative act. Seems to go against any notion that you are trying to build a team of talented and productive players who score points for their NFL team and instead are just playing a statistical game that is almost impossible to forecast.

 

 

Kickers, Defensive teams, WR beyond the top 12-15.....how would punters be any different?

 

Seems a more logical addition to a FF game than coaches, but a lot of leagues do that.

[House of Pain]

http://football33.myfantasyleague.com/2006...Y=points&TEAM=*

 

Punters roxor

[Bronco Billy]

You mean there are actually FF leagues that don't start punters?

 

Those leagues must be for newbies and/or wimmen.

[Bronco Billy]

Here's the problem.

 

It's bad enough that we use kickers when they are very hard to predict. This is because they are merely the end result of a series of downs that went father than the opponent's 35 yard line and yet fell short of a TD. The player with the most XP is rarely every the highest scoring kicker (in fact I think he never is). BUT - at least a kicker is posting points for the offense.

 

A punter is the result of a team sucking so badly on a series that they could not at least reach the 35 yard line of their oppponents and have to give the ball back. So it would be like rewarding a negative for a team to give fantasy points. Let's make it even more complicated and reward the yardage of a punt so that if a punter is going for a "coffin corner", there is no way that he can punt very far. So in that case, you want the absolute worse team's punter since he will always have a full field to punt.

 

I just don't personally care for rewarding a negative act. Seems to go against any notion that you are trying to build a team of talented and productive players who score points for their NFL team and instead are just playing a statistical game that is almost impossible to forecast.

 

Not that I have an opinion really.

 

 

That could be about the worst assessment of a situation that I've seen.

 

A punter is an integrel part of the team - if you believe that field position plays a significant role in the game. If you don't understand how important field position is in determining play calling, probability of scoring, and eventually the outcome of a game, then a statement that a punter is a "negative" player would be excusable.

 

Pinning teams in the shadow of their own goal post immediately makes all but a very few coaches ultra-conservative. They don't dare to make a mistake in their offensive play calling down there because they'll give the opponent such a short field to play on if a mistake does occur, and will give up at least a FG. So most coaches severely restrict the play book when they are inside their own 20, which in turn benefits the D greatly. That in turn can give the offense great field position when its opponent has to punt out of its own end zone, making scoring much more likely.

 

Then you have a punt that can change the entire play of a quarter or more - either with a great punt that "flips" the field or with a crappy punt that creates a short field for the opponent. Punters that can "flip" the field can change the entire complexion of a game from a team struggling to maintain field position to one that can aggressively attack the other team's offense & defense.

 

Punters that can regularly nail the "coffin corner" are impact players, and are few and far between, if you watch NFL games in this era. Coaches have gotten so fed up with the lack of punters that can accurately nail coffin corner kicks that they instead have punters kick the ball "up the elevator shaft" instead, hoping coverage can down the ball before the incompetent punter has their kick roll through the end zone. And really good punters know how to change their kicks from tight spirals that they want to drive a long distance to wobbly end-over-end pooch kicks that they want to kill inside the 20.

 

Now, punters obviously aren't nearly as important as most if not all other players on the field, and they should be scored accordingly. And kicks downed inside the other team's 20 ought to be rewarded significantly in relation to points for yardage.

 

But punting is a "negative" act? Only to the uninformed.

Edited August 27, 2006 by Bronco Billy