So the "best" punter is on Oakland and he had 63 punts returned (most).
The "worst" punter was on NE and he had 20 punts returned (least).
Mmmm.....
You're definitely not looking at the whole picture if you're looking at punts returned ALONE. Did you also happen to notice that New England also punts the LEAST outside of any team not from Denver or San Diego? Hanson only had to punt the ball 56 times ALL SEASON. It's not a big mystery why he had fewer kicks returned! The Patriots had the 3rd lowest punting total out of 32 teams in the NFL!! You can just blame Brady and Welker for all those damn 3rd down conversions that extend drives and keeps the punter off the field.
Other factors to look at - Touchbacks. By definition, they can't be returned, but they aren't good either, particularly if you're trying to pin them inside the 20.
And Net Yardage is still a useful stat to look at for the following reason - Net Yardage automatically subtracts the yardage that the returner accrued. So a guy like Lechler who had an Avg punt of 51.1 and a Net of 43.9 means that on average the ball was only returned 7.2 yards per punt. Since the official hang time per punt is not recorded, the return yardage allowed is basically our second biggest indicator of having a good punter.
Lechler only allowed 7.3 yard average return. Hanson on the other hand allowed a 9.0 average return. Matt Turk may be the most Underrated punter in the league with his measly 4.3 avg return per punt. He may not kick the ball as far as other guys, but it doesn't get returned as far either!
2009 NFL Player Punting Stats - National Football League - ESPN
So let's say that Inside the 20 is the result we like. Its one of the best results you can get. Fair catches are good too, however we don't know how many fair catches were ALSO inside the 20. Adding them both together would create inaccuracies so let's just focus on inside the 20. Touchbacks, we'll consider as shanks so we'll subtract them from punt totals. Whats the percentage of touchbacks on good punts? I'll call this good corner punt percentage or GCP for short.
Inside 20/Punt attempts - Touchbacks = Good Corner Punt Percantage or GCP
Average Return given up = AR
1. Shane Lechler AR = 7.3 GCP = 35.7%
2. Donnie Jones AR = 6.3 GCP = 42.5%
3. Dustin Colquitt AR = 7.1 GCP = 45.5%
4. Andy Lee AR = 8.7 GCP = 33%
5. Ben Graham AR = 10.5 GCP = 50.6%
6. Brian Moorman AR = 7.7 GCP = 31.3%
7. Mat McBriar AR = 8.3 GCP = 55.1%
8. Brandon Fields AR = 8.6 GCP = 36.2%
9. Matt Turk AR = 4.3 GCP = 39.3%
10. Mike Scifres AR = 11.5 GCP = 46%
32. Chris Hanson AR = 9.0 GCP = 35.2%
The number ranking, is the ranking by net yardage. Hanson has the lowest net yardage of any punter in the national football league. This is a fact. This is probably more a function of leg strength than anything else, though accuracy also factors. Shanked punts will obviously lead to overall lower net yardage.
Now the good corner punt percentage is interesting. Note that in the top 10, there appeared to be some punters that were significantly better at getting inside the 20 results without touchbacks than others. McBriar tops the charts at 55.1% followed by Ben Graham at 50.6% and Scifres comes in 3rd with 46%. On the other hand, there are also 2 punters in the top 10 with a lower GCP than Chris Hanson.
Does this make him a top 10 punter? Not when you also account for Net Yardage (#32 dead last), Average Return (#22), Total Touchbacks (Tied for #20 with 5 even though he punted the third LEAST of all punters in the NFL!).
Plus I didn't take the time to calculate the GCP of all the remaining other punters in the NFL. But if the top 10 sample is any indicator, the Elite punters in the NFL will usually have a GCP around 45% or higher and the mediocre ones will probably have a GCP around 35% or lower.
All of this to say - Hanson is a mediocre to poor punter at best. Let's try to get somebody a little better for 2010! Eh, BB? Are you listening?
