Bargain shopping: punters such as Craig Hentrich can be a great investment at a relatively cheap price

Football Digest, Oct, 2005 by Mike Beacom

HE'S THE BUTT OF LOCKER-room jokes, and fans rarely recognize the name on the back of his uniform. Come contract time, he lives at the lowest point on the pay scale.

In the NFL, there is little love given to the punter.

But for the team that possesses a truly great punter, it's a luxury on par with having an elite tight end. Laugh at him, sure, but live without a good one? Forget it. Just ask Rich McKay, president and general manager of the Atlanta Falcons.

In January, McKay's club was one game away from reaching the Super Bowl. The 17-degree weather in Philadelphia for the NFC Championship Game was the perfect climate for a tug of war, a game in which the winner of the battle for field position would wind up in Jacksonville for the Super Bowl. Both punters--the Philadelphia Eagles' Dirk Johnson and Atlanta's Chris Mohr--kicked into the same elements that day, but Johnson handled them much better. He averaged 38.3 yards per punt compared to Mohr's 26.0 average. That 12-yard difference allowed the Eagles to work with a shorter field all afternoon, with an average starting position on their own 39-yard line. Atlanta's average starting position was on its own 26. The outcome: Philadelphia 27, Atlanta 10.

McKay won't place all of the blame on Mohr because up to the final few weeks of the 2004 season the punter had compiled a respectable 16-year resume, and, of course, other Atlanta players made mistakes against the Eagles, even quarterback Michael Vick. But the fact that the Falcons made punter a priority this offseason speaks volumes about how McKay assessed the importance of the position after that game.

"You want consistency, but you also have to understand that it is difficult to go from kicking in a dome to kicking in 17-degree weather," he says. The bottom line, adds McKay, is that "you want to be able to trust your punter." By March, Mohr was out and Toby Gowin and Ryan Flinn were signed to compete for the job.

While punters will never be as valuable to a franchise as, say, a left tackle, a shutdown cornerback, or a pass-catching tight end, having a great one can make a big difference. Some teams are willing to pay the price, some aren't.

"There are certain teams that just don't view [punter] as an important position," says agent David Canter, whose list of punter clients includes Flinn, Todd Sauerbrun, and Matt Turk. "They think they can bring in a college kid or an undrafted free agent off the street or a veteran that's cheap and he'll do the same job as everyone else.

"The difference is that with some teams the philosophy is completely the opposite, and punter is viewed as one of the key positions in winning a football game. What you're starting to see more and more is a change in philosophy from the front office all the way on down to the coaching staff that in order to win in the NFL nowadays you have to play ball-possession, field-control football. It's why the New England Patriots are so successful, and it's why the Carolina Panthers were so successful in 2003."

The teams that pony up usually are happy with the return on their investment. On the other hand, the ones that pass on the punting game often regret it later on. In spring 1998, Ron Wolf was the general manager of the Green Bay Packers. His team was fresh off back-to-back Super Bowl appearances and the list of the team's free agents that offseason was long. One player who eventually got away, punter Craig Hentrich, has haunted the franchise ever since.

"When we found out what it would cost, I made the decision to sign him and the [negotiator] handling the situation didn't do his job," says Wolf. "I'm not trying to pass the buck, because ultimately I was responsible, but I guess you could say I was furious."

Since Hentrich's departure, the Packers have played musical chairs with punters and regularly haw, ranked near the bottom of the league in most punting categories. Things got so desperate in Green Bay that the team used a third-round selection in 2004 on Ohio State's B.J. Sander. He didn't make the traveling roster as a rookie but will again try to cement himself as the full-time punter this fall.

"In Green Bay, field position is so darn important," says Wolf. "What can really help you in those elements is a solid kicking game--punter, kicker, holder."

If any executive knows the value of having a strong punting game, it's Wolf. After all, in 1973 as part of the Oakland Raiders' scouting department, he helped to make Ray Guy a first-round selection (the only punter able to claim such a distinction). As questionable as that decision was at the time, Oakland was desperate to improve its punting game, and the move paid huge dividends. Often referred to as the greatest punter ever, Guy was outstanding during his 14-year career.

Tennessee can claim similar satisfaction out of its punting game. The Titans stole Hentrich away from Green Bay for a cool million dollars; a large sum of money for a punter in 1998 (even still today) but a bargain for what Hentrich has brought to the table. He's remained a fixture atop the leaderboards in most punting categories and last season ranked fourth in the league in net average. By comparison, Green Bay's punter, Bryan Barker, ranked 33rd.