Look forward to you calling your shots.

although you do call attention to a useful distinction. Obviously, given the same trajectory off the kicker’s foot, a powerfully hit and therefore longer kick will be in the air longer than a weakly hit ball. The phrase “farther than your coverage can run” nicely highlights what most fans intuitively have in mind when they speak of “hang time”. Clearly, it’s the time in the air as a proportion of the horizontal distance traveled that most fans “mean” when they speak of hang time, even though they might not consciously have made that distinction. As you indicate the point is for the ball to be in the air long enough for the coverage to get there when or before the receiver catches it, and it’s a function of trajectory. Kern’s kicks weren’t high enough, and that much more than the lack of inside-the-20 expertise is in my opinion what cost him his job. You could see it coming, with the frequency of line-drive kicks and with McDaniels previously bringing in other kickers to look at. It seemed we were dodging a bullet on almost every return, and when it finally happened, on Sproles’ return, it was the last straw. I fully expected Kern to
be gone after that, and the only surprise was it was before we played another game. McDaniels doesn’t fool around.

they are helpful in showing stronger relationships and giving some insight into why the change was made

“Nailed your point like it was Tom Cable’s wife and his dinner was cold.”

Is what I meant to say.

Disclaimer: Domestic Abuse is not funny. Tom Cable is apprehensible and should not be allowed to have a leadership role anywhere. Ever.

That being said I just wanted to point out how much of a douche he is.

Clearly on any TB there was an opportunity to pin them inside the 20.

man MHR members are insightful!! My first draft of this piece only look at Berger vs. Kern from the 30 out, which would have taken out the outlier punts inside of one’s own redzone. Berger was even better under this analysis. My goal was exactly what you have mentioned here, SI, to try to get an even more level playing field from which to examine these two punters. I did not want to complicate the major points, however, and add more paragraphs in an already boring stats article. Next time I won’t make such assumptions.

Thanks, man!

As was evidenced last Sunday in Baltimore.

I would hope he knows more! Maybe not more than HT, but that is the only guy I know who comes close.

Jeremy Boone next year…

You said Boone not boom right?

Too bad we can’t get Ray Guy out there.

However, I would say that statistically, there are many more punts that will take place between the 20s. For example, of Kern’s 46 punts last year, only 5 took place from the 20 and back to his red zone.

I think she did say that!!!

Is that 11 yards of field position worth the risk of the punt being returned for more than 12 yards or even a TD?

I agree, Jeff, but consider that with a higher trajectory the 55-yarder with a 12-yard return might have been a 45-yarder with NO return. And even if it’s a 45-yarder with a 3 or 4-yard return and thus a slightly lower net I think McDaniels would prefer that kind of average if it pretty much killed the possibility of a back-breaking return. Net is more important than gross (because it’s how far you move the LOS, not how far you kick the ball) but I think McDaniels would even be willing to give up a little bit in average net if it precluded his coverage unit constantly being in danger of giving up a big return. Backed up, I’d prefer a kicker who can pretty reliably get the ball out to the 40 with no return than
one who can get it to the 45 or 50 with the constant danger of it being returned for a TD. Ideally, you’d want a kicker who can get it to the 50 with no return, but no such kicker was available. Given the trade-offs that had to be made, I think McDaniels made the right move.

I am worried too about that slow delivery. However, maybe this will make you feel bettter:

Berger has 804 career punts with only 3 blocks?

Feel better? Ha! I didn’t think so.

He should work for league minimum too…

Ray Guy was the closest I have ever seen to the guy you just described. Perhaps I am missing someone from the pre-80s though, when guys played both ways. I should go back and looke.

Remember when Sauerbraun was supposedly doing HgH? He made some bad ass tackles on special teams for a few years:-)

I don’t understand why McDaniels doesn’t have this Clark Kent under contract already.

- Hang time
- Accuracy
- Placement of the football
- Great tackling by the coverage
- Not being deep in our own territory

All of the above in their own way contribute to results like:

Percentage of Punts Inside Opponents 20-Yard Line: .346

Percentage of Punts Not Returned: .323

I think from my observations, that the keys to mistake-free football, is to have a lot of variables such as the ones I listed above, work in your favor. Easier said than done, but I give McD credit for putting those pieces in place this year.

And if Berger doesn’t work out for us, it’s ok, since there is an already existing trend in acquiring Aussie Rules guys from the land down under.

Priefer’s been in the hot seat ever since the New England game. It remains to be seen if he will be our long term answer for Special Teams.

Would I ever lie to you? :-)

But one thing to keep in mind is that this was not about last year; it’s about McD not having much luck molding Kern this year: up until Bsltimore most punts were from near the 50, and it seemed like they were all TBs

I argued this Kern v Berger point in several places, but not nearly as well as this article; plus the strong Win vs inside 20 correlation is real, even if the instance is unclear.

I think McD wanted a known commodity, flashy or not, just to avoid one more ;@$!)? Touchback,

Thanks for the input. First, “clearly” is relative, isn’t it :-) ha!

When I first did this article, I was trying to strip outliers from the data, and so I looked at Berger and Kern from only the 20-20 on punting. And Berger was beating him by a bit higher numbers. So I forgot to change this word. Thanks for pointing this out.

I think when you say margin of error (since we are not dealing with a random sample), you are really asking the question, "How confident is one that this is a larger enough sample size to demonstrate that Berger is for sure Better than Kern.

Fair point. I decided to quickly go back and get a few more data points. For Berger we have:

804 punts
253 inside the 20 (32%)
402 Returns (thus 402 non returns = 50%)

And for Kern’s career we have:

77 punts
25 inside the 20 (33%)
41 returns (thus 36 non returns = 46%)

So I think this larger sample size is congruent with the larger point that Berger has shown a tendency to be better at both.

However, as my stockbroker friends are fond of saying: Past results are no assurance of future returns!!!! Kern has a lot of years in front of him, and it’s possible, I will grant anyone, that Berger could be on the downslide.

But I am still betting on black (thought I would be cool…this just means I am betting on McDaniels).

Thanks for your awesome comments. It helps make my stuff better going forward.

No worries, mate. Although I think there are bigger problems than the punting game (3rd down and kick off return and cover), I believe you will see us start to flip the field more often with Berger…And I hope I am right!!!!!!!!

Ed Reed is crazy good.

Yep. The Stokely catch was much less of a miracle than the punt Ed Reed didn’t block. Right through his arms? Never again.

It was a miracle that Berger didn’t have that punt stuff back into the dirt and picked up for an easy TD. If you want a game changing play, I can’t think of a bigger one than a blocked punt for a TD.

A punt return is usually the result of a returner’s excellence and great blocking. A blocked punt is usually the result of a break down (a mistake) by the punting team.

With his turtle slow release, Berger is a mistake waiting to happen. Is such a slow wind up worth it for sky high 31 yard kicks that are not returned?

The answers is 0 to 0. In 2008, neither guy had a punt blocked, but I’ll grant you Berger has a painfully long lead time into that kick.

I have a feeling (and I hope I’m right), that we will see field position for the Broncos turn around now and creep up for the rest of the year with Berger. If I’m wrong, I’ll document it either way. But I have to believe his career track record speaks for itself:

804 punts
253 inside the 20 (32%)
402 Returns (thus 402 non returns = 50%)

that we’re talking about ONE punt, which might not be typical. You make the same point in a different way, that he might have been rusty and that he might normally be quicker. In other words, as I think we’re both suggesting, we have to wait and see if it’s a pattern before calling it a problem.

Great thoughts. Believe me, I looked and looked for hangtimes to see if that existed. I am sure that these numbers exist, but I don’t think they are available to guys like me;-)

Regarding your other questions, give me a little time and I’ll try to have that back to you on Saturday:-)

Really quickly I looked at his career numbers:

804 punts
253 inside the 20 (32%)
402 Returns (thus 402 non returns = 50%)

So Berger has actually been very consistent over his career, and even better actually than his numbers from last year show.

any comparison would have to remove this factor. If a high percentage of Kern’s non-returned kicks are TBs that would make him look better than he actually is.

a fifth 30+ year-old CB.

“Oh crap, how in the hell am I gonna figure this one out?”

I am perplexed by this one for sure.

Thanks, man.

+1

When I looked at Berger vs. Kern from their whole careers, here’s what I saw:

For Berger we have:

804 punts
253 inside the 20 (32%)
402 Returns (thus 402 non returns = 50%)

And for Kern’s career we have:

77 punts
25 inside the 20 (33%)
41 returns (thus 36 non returns = 46%)

I should have put this in the article.

is that Berger’s average of 41 yards last year, is only 4 yards shy Sepulveda’s (our punter this year) average of 45 yards this year. After watching Berger punt last year, that stat is…surprising at best!

a positive feedback loop….about a negative thing.

A negative feeback would counter, or interrupt the trend: in this case, Raiders attract low-IQ, but IQs are raised by Raider fanhood. Since that scenarios is nonsensical, the feeback is auto-reinforcing – thus positive.

And it does explain a lot….

For use of math behind the “stats” – this is really just multiplication hidden behind percentages because they are nicely portable.

22 returned TDs should stick in anyone’s craw.