Today’s post is from friend of the site Bryan Frye. You can view all of Bryan’s guest posts here, and follow him on twitter @LaverneusDingle. What follows are Bryan’s words, with minor editing from Chase.
Last month, I had a mini tweet storm about punting value versus punting skill, where I discussed punters, how to measure punting, and how to reconcile the apparent gap between value (as measure by expected points) and perceived skill. Today, I want to revisit some of my ideas, expand on them, and offer them for debate among the smart readers of this site. I know punting isn’t the most exciting topic, even for die hard football fans, but I used to punt in Pop Warner and have always been a bit of a punting aficionado.
Methodology
First, I gathered all punts from 2009-2017. Then, I removed those that came from non-punters. Next, I excluded blocked kicks, scoring plays, and turnovers, which are rare events that dramatically skew data and may not actually be indicative of a punter’s ability. I was left with 18,375 punts ripe for examination. [1]Ideally, we could include hang time in the equation to see if that proves to be a significant factor. Anecdotally, a team would prefer a 40 yard punt that spent 4.3 seconds in the air to a punt of … Continue reading
To try to assign expected value to punts from a given yard line, I looked at the Expected Points Added by all punts in the data set. [2]For EPA, I am using Ron Yurko’s version. I then plotted yards from end zone (e.g., kicking from your own 20 is 80 yards from the end zone) against EPA and used a sextic function to find a best fit line for what our expectations should be for a punt from a particular yard line. [3]The function, for those interested: y = -0.000000000743805x6 + 0.000000263921778x5 – 0.000037400877394x4 + 0.00269765455x3 – 0.105061671689785x2 + 2.1744406183205x – 20.578738996142. … Continue reading
Punting Value Versus Punting Skill: In Theory
I tend to think of punters in two categories: coffin corner punters and distance punters. Coffin corner punters are known as technicians for their incredible ability to spot the ball seemingly wherever they want to. They are, based on my analysis pretty clearly the more skilled punters. Distance punters often put up big kicks because they play on bad teams that punt often from deep inside their own territory. They are seen as the brute force, unskilled bangers of the punting community. There are also guys like Johnny Hekker, who can do it all with aplomb, but special cases are exactly that – special. For most of my life, I have been on the side of the technicians and derided the big-legged guys who seem to lack control over their kicks. However, evidence suggests that, while the booming kicks may take less finesse, they may contribute more toward winning games.
Coffin corner kicks require a deft foot, but they also tend to produce less value from an EPA perspective. This is because the kicks often come from midfield or opponent territory, where EPA often advocates trying for a conversion or field goal. Punting sacrifices possession of the ball for field position, and because it is similar to a turnover, it is difficult to achieve a high EPA on any punt. This is especially true when teams opt to cede possession of the ball at the expense of a scoring opportunity. The red trend line on the chart below represents the expected point value of a punt from the corresponding yard line. Notice that the red line drops below zero inside of a team’s own 10 yard line and once a team reaches its own 45 yard line. This means EPA sees the idea of punting from within 55 yards from goal as an automatic negative, making it impossible for even the best punt to produce positive EPA in that situation. [4]With the exception of a muffed punt, but I haven’t seen any credible evidence suggesting forcing turnovers is a real punting skill and not just a product of chance. Also note that going for it from … Continue reading [continue reading…]
References
| ↑1 | Ideally, we could include hang time in the equation to see if that proves to be a significant factor. Anecdotally, a team would prefer a 40 yard punt that spent 4.3 seconds in the air to a punt of equal distance that took only 3.6 seconds to land. It would be nice to test to see if that anecdote is founded in reality and not just a vague idea of “common sense” or whatever term people who prefer not to think too much call it. Unfortunately, I have only seen the Rams and Raiders consistently mention hang time in their game logs. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | For EPA, I am using Ron Yurko’s version. |
| ↑3 | The function, for those interested: y = -0.000000000743805x6 + 0.000000263921778x5 – 0.000037400877394x4 + 0.00269765455x3 – 0.105061671689785x2 + 2.1744406183205x – 20.578738996142. Obviously, there’s no real reason to show this many significant digits, but I wanted to be sure to show clear differentiation in the small numbers. This function produced an R2 of 0.13. |
| ↑4 | With the exception of a muffed punt, but I haven’t seen any credible evidence suggesting forcing turnovers is a real punting skill and not just a product of chance. Also note that going for it from midfield can also be a negative EPA proposition, if the distance is long enough. In those cases, a team is left with picking the “less bad” option. So it’s not “never punt from inside the 50” as much as it is “think twice about punting from inside the 50.” In general, avoid nevers and alwayses. In the future, I plan to revisit this specific aspect of using EPA to judge punting and the coaching decision to punt. |