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Riley Dixon was maybe not an elite punter this season, but he was close and as a rookie he should get better over time.
Here is the full list of 2016 individual and All-Rookie team honors as selected by the PFWA: pic.twitter.com/N7vZTtHCBe
— Pro Football Writers (@PFWAwriters) January 17, 2017
Dixon was selected to the all-rookie team (beating out two other rookie punters, Lac Edwards of the Jets and Drew Kaser of the Chargers). The doesn’t tell much of the story though. Dixon averaged 41.3 yards per punt (net) which was the highest value ever for a rookie punter.
We’re going to look much deeper into the numbers, but before that we need to discuss what the job of the punter is. The punter has three tasks with the third being paramount:
- Catch the snap cleanly
- Get the punt off without getting it blocked
- Force the other team to start as close to their own goal line as possible. This can be done by punt length, hangtime or direction. Having an elite punt coverage unit helps immensely.
Let’s talk about point 3. I break punts down into “long field punts” (LFPs) where the LOS is your own 34 or worse and “short field punts” (SFPs) where you are punting from your own 35 or beyond. The shortest SFP this season occurred in a game between the Bears and the 49ers in Chicago when Chip Kelly had his punter punt from the CHI 31 instead of attempting to go for it on 4th down or attempting a 47 yard FG in the snow. On LFPs I have defined the optimal result as a 65 yard net punt. On SFPs the optimal result of a punt is to down it at the 1. So I evaluated every punt in the NFL this season (I have done this for the past three years) and gave every punt a score which I call punt percentage (punt%).
Punt % = net yards gained by punt / potential yards gained by punt
where the potential yards for a LFP are 65 and for a SFP they are determined by the LOS for the punt. For example, if the punter is punting from the 50, and punts the ball so that it goes out of bounds at the 6, then that would get a score of 89.7% (44 net yards / 49 possible yards). I also looked at how consistent each punter was by evaluating the standard deviation of their punts. Lower standard deviation (SD) is better - more consistent.
| TEAM | Punt% | StDev |
| LAR | 76.5% | 12.0% |
| TAM | 74.3% | 12.7% |
| IND | 71.4% | 11.7% |
| CIN | 71.3% | 16.6% |
| KAN | 71.0% | 13.6% |
| ATL | 70.7% | 18.6% |
| NOR | 70.2% | 14.9% |
| NEW | 70.1% | 12.1% |
| DEN | 69.3% | 12.4% |
| BAL | 69.0% | 22.8% |
| DET | 69.0% | 19.6% |
| NYJ | 68.9% | 24.2% |
| OAK | 68.8% | 22.3% |
| PHI | 68.7% | 16.5% |
| NYG | 68.6% | 17.8% |
| CAR | 68.3% | 19.7% |
| DAL | 67.6% | 18.0% |
| HOU | 67.4% | 19.7% |
| SEA | 66.8% | 16.1% |
| TEN | 66.8% | 22.6% |
| MIN | 66.6% | 18.9% |
| GB | 66.4% | 16.1% |
| MIA | 66.3% | 17.1% |
| CHI | 66.0% | 23.8% |
| SF | 65.7% | 17.7% |
| JAX | 65.6% | 23.0% |
| PIT | 65.3% | 21.7% |
| SD | 65.3% | 25.3% |
| BUF | 65.0% | 16.2% |
| WAS | 64.9% | 18.5% |
| CLE | 64.7% | 17.1% |
| AZ | 60.1% | 20.4% |
By this metric Riley Dixon was 9th in the league. For comparison, Britton Colquitt finished 21st. Riley Dixon was also one of the most consistent punters in the league by this metric. His standard deviation of 12.4% was the fourth lowest in the league, meaning that he was very consistent. Arizona had the worst punter in the league by this metric for the third straight year and again it wasn’t even close. Make note that CLE and TEN both had former Broncos punting for them this year with Colquitt and Kern on those two teams. Dixon out-punted both easily.
The other way that I like to evaluate punters is to use what I call the precision punt percentage (PPP). The precision punt percentage is the percentage of punts inside the 10 minus the percentage of punts that go for touchbacks.
| Team | Punts | Net AVG | Avg | IN20% | in10% | in5% | TB% | PPP% | FC% | RET AVG |
| Rams | 98 | 46.0 | 47.8 | 52.0% | 16.3% | 6.1% | 1.0% | 15% | 40.8% | 4.3 |
| Lions | 62 | 44.2 | 48.5 | 37.1% | 16.1% | 6.5% | 4.8% | 11% | 22.6% | 6.0 |
| Colts | 55 | 43.5 | 48.4 | 34.5% | 10.9% | 5.5% | 16.4% | -5% | 30.9% | 8.2 |
| Buccaneers | 70 | 42.7 | 45.9 | 52.9% | 27.1% | 12.9% | 7.1% | 20% | 41.4% | 5.3 |
| Saints | 57 | 42.4 | 48.3 | 38.6% | 15.8% | 5.3% | 8.8% | 7% | 12.3% | 8.2 |
| Falcons | 48 | 41.7 | 46.7 | 43.8% | 18.8% | 2.1% | 2.1% | 17% | 37.5% | 9.6 |
| Patriots | 72 | 41.4 | 44.7 | 31.9% | 16.7% | 6.9% | 6.9% | 10% | 26.4% | 5.0 |
| Raiders | 81 | 41.4 | 48.6 | 42.0% | 24.7% | 9.9% | 11.1% | 14% | 18.5% | 12.3 |
| Broncos | 89 | 41.3 | 45.7 | 31.5% | 11.2% | 3.4% | 6.7% | 4% | 28.1% | 6.8 |
| Cowboys | 58 | 41.2 | 45.1 | 43.1% | 15.5% | 1.7% | 6.9% | 9% | 29.3% | 8.7 |
| Giants | 93 | 40.9 | 46.2 | 30.1% | 18.3% | 10.8% | 8.6% | 10% | 17.2% | 8.9 |
| Steelers | 68 | 40.8 | 44.9 | 36.8% | 13.2% | 2.9% | 4.4% | 9% | 25.0% | 9.6 |
| Eagles | 63 | 40.7 | 45.8 | 33.3% | 15.9% | 6.3% | 9.5% | 6% | 23.8% | 8.1 |
| Chiefs | 76 | 40.7 | 45.1 | 50.0% | 23.7% | 9.2% | 11.8% | 12% | 35.5% | 5.2 |
| Browns | 83 | 40.3 | 45.3 | 26.5% | 6.0% | 3.6% | 2.4% | 4% | 27.7% | 8.4 |
| Texans | 72 | 40.1 | 47.5 | 41.7% | 19.4% | 1.4% | 4.2% | 15% | 18.1% | 9.9 |
| Dolphins | 90 | 39.9 | 44.3 | 35.6% | 18.9% | 5.6% | 5.6% | 13% | 28.9% | 8.1 |
| Ravens | 80 | 39.9 | 45.8 | 46.3% | 17.5% | 3.8% | 6.3% | 11% | 17.5% | 11.4 |
| Seahawks | 71 | 39.9 | 43.4 | 36.6% | 15.5% | 5.6% | 4.2% | 11% | 31.0% | 8.4 |
| Chargers | 59 | 39.8 | 46.3 | 30.5% | 13.6% | 8.5% | 8.5% | 5% | 16.9% | 8.5 |
| 49ers | 100 | 39.8 | 44.0 | 28.0% | 16.0% | 2.0% | 4.0% | 12% | 41.0% | 8.6 |
| Bengals | 78 | 39.5 | 46.3 | 29.5% | 12.8% | 3.8% | 10.3% | 3% | 25.6% | 9.7 |
| Jaguars | 77 | 39.5 | 46.6 | 35.1% | 14.3% | 3.9% | 10.4% | 4% | 24.7% | 12.5 |
| Packers | 56 | 39.1 | 43.2 | 33.9% | 12.5% | 7.1% | 7.1% | 5% | 32.1% | 9.4 |
| Vikings | 74 | 39.0 | 42.6 | 45.9% | 25.7% | 6.8% | 4.1% | 22% | 37.8% | 8.0 |
| R. Potatoes | 49 | 38.9 | 45.1 | 30.6% | 16.3% | 4.1% | 8.2% | 8% | 14.3% | 8.2 |
| Panthers | 76 | 38.6 | 45.8 | 40.8% | 21.1% | 9.2% | 10.5% | 11% | 17.1% | 9.6 |
| Titans | 77 | 38.6 | 44.2 | 41.6% | 20.8% | 2.6% | 5.2% | 16% | 35.1% | 9.6 |
| Bears | 68 | 38.4 | 44.0 | 35.3% | 17.6% | 4.4% | 7.4% | 10% | 45.6% | 12.8 |
| Bills | 75 | 38.1 | 42.4 | 26.7% | 9.3% | 4.0% | 4.0% | 5% | 10.7% | 6.7 |
| Jets | 75 | 37.8 | 42.6 | 32.0% | 10.7% | 1.3% | 5.3% | 5% | 29.3% | 9.1 |
| Cardinals | 78 | 37.4 | 40.9 | 32.1% | 11.5% | 3.8% | 2.6% | 9% | 37.2% | 9.4 |
Note that Dixon was 9th in net punting, 16th in gross punting, 25th in in20% (percentage of punts where opponent started drive inside their 20), 28th in in10%, 25th in in5%, 16th in lowest touchback % (TB%), 16th at forcing fair catches (FC%) and 28th at precision punt percentage.
While many of those numbers aren’t great (and some are poor), I think much of that was a result of following Joe D.’s orders to focus on direction and hangtime much like Britton Colquitt did for us in 2015. Our punt coverage was generally quite good as we finished 7th in lowest average punt return allowed and we were one of four teams that did not allow a punt return of 20 yards or longer this season (the others were KC, NE and LAR - note that the free kick after safety that the abuser returned for a TD in KC does not count). The longest punt return that we allowed this year was 17 yards.