4/30/2023 0 Comments Loopy game cardsIf the Seahawks punted on the short side of midfield in 2021, it was fourth-and-at-least-3. In fact, most of Carroll's play-it-safe punts on fourth-and-short, the decisions that ding his Aggressiveness Index, occurred around the Seahawks' 35-yard line. Would you believe fourth-and-14 from the Steelers 39 in the fourth quarter of a tie game in Week 7?.How about fourth-and-16 from the Cardinals 47 in Week 11?.He punted on fourth-and-18 from midfield against the Texans in Week 14.He punted on fourth-and-21 from the Bears 41 in Week 16.Dickson punted on fourth-and-21 from the Titans 48-yard line in Week 2.But there was something else at work last season: the Seahawks had a knack for placing themselves behind the 8-ball once they crossed midfield. That shouldn't be surprising, as he's an aging, defensive-oriented coach. Pete Carroll had the lowest Aggressiveness Index in the NFL on fourth downs in 2021. That impacted both his gross figures (about a dozen more short-on-purpose kicks than the typical punter) and his net (more fair catches and kicks out of bounds or downed). The Seahawks made Dickson punt in these circumstances about twice as often as average. Most teams only punt about 10 times per year on the short side of midfield, mostly in fourth-and-15-from-the-48 situations. There has been an explosion of fourth-down aggressiveness in recent years. His 21 punts from opponent's territory were the highest total in the NFL since 2018. Enjoy your new quarterback coach, Mac Jones!īut back to Dickson. Then his punter and gunners just let the ball squirt into the end zone 37.5% of the time. He did loopy stuff like run the units onto the field at the last moment in an effort to gain the tiniest field position advantage. He kicked almost compulsively in fourth-and-short go-for-it situations. Joe Judge touted himself as heaven's gift to special teams. My favorite statistic in the list above is Riley Dixon's six touchbacks. We're counting the 50-yard line as opponents' territory for simplicity's sake. With that out of the way, here are the players who punted most often from opponent's territory in 2021. Two other obvious points: someone tasked with frequently pooching punts on purpose because he's near midfield is going to have a reduced yards-per-punt figure, and punting near midfield is almost always a suboptimal strategy in the modern NFL. (We're using the line of scrimmage, not where the punter stands, throughout this article.) When punting near midfield, however, the punter is supposed to grab the chipping wedge from his golf bag and deliver a shorter, higher-hangtime kick that lands somewhere inside the 20-yard line. The Seahawks punt from the wrong side of midfield waaayyyyy too often.Īs you probably know, when kicking from around his own 25-yard line, a punter can let 'er rip and launch the ball as far as he can. Yet Dickson probably has the strongest leg in the league. He netted 41.7 yards per punt, and the Seahawks finished third in the NFL in punt value according to our ratings, so Dickson was clearly offering something that the average punter does not. That's because his team forces him to punt in some really terrible situations.ĭickson grossed 46.9 yards per punt in 2021, finishing a pedestrian 12th in the rankings. He's one of the best players in the NFL at his position but his statistics look rather ordinary. NFL Offseason - Seattle Seahawks punter Michael Dickson has a problem.
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