Correlations Between Punting and Defense and Punting and Winning

[ntexascardfan]

I'm not sure those are the right things to be measuring.

To really determine the effectiveness of a good punter you'd have to measure the effect he has on the defense, not directly correlating a team with good defense to the quality of their punter.

Does having a top five punter in the league v. a replacement level punter keep points off the board, does it make teams have to drive more of the field to score?

A good defense doesn't need a great punter to be good, but how much better does having a great punter make a good defense? That's the question that needs to be asked.

Anecdotally, I would point to the Texas v. Mizzou bowl game last year for what an elite punter can do to a teams offense. If you want to tell me that Mizzou starting over 1/2 of their drives inside their own 15 yard line didn't have an affect on that game I have a bridge in New York I'd like to sell ya.

[kccrow]

Originally Posted by ntexascardfan

I'm not sure those are the right things to be measuring.

To really determine the effectiveness of a good punter you'd have to measure the effect he has on the defense, not directly correlating a team with good defense to the quality of their punter.

Does having a top five punter in the league v. a replacement level punter keep points off the board, does it make teams have to drive more of the field to score?

A good defense doesn't need a great punter to be good, but how much better does having a great punter make a good defense? That's the question that needs to be asked.

Anecdotally, I would point to the Texas v. Mizzou bowl game last year for what an elite punter can do to a teams offense. If you want to tell me that Mizzou starting over 1/2 of their drives inside their own 15 yard line didn't have an affect on that game I have a bridge in New York I'd like to sell ya.

I think you need to look at the data and your question will be answered... I'm not getting into another argument over this because someone can't read it.

[ntexascardfan]

Originally Posted by kccrow

I think you need to look at the data and your question will be answered... I'm not getting into another argument over this because someone can't read it.

It's a poor presentation and what you presented doesn't answer the questions I posted above. I'm a data analyst for a living.

Post your data up in a google drive spreadsheet.

[kccrow]

Originally Posted by ntexascardfan

It's a poor presentation and what you presented doesn't answer the questions I posted above. I'm a data analyst for a living.

Post your data up in a google drive spreadsheet.

I posted the excel spreadsheet in the only format this forum accepts, which is 97-2003 xls. You can open it in any later version and save it.

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by ntexascardfan

I'm not sure those are the right things to be measuring.

To really determine the effectiveness of a good punter you'd have to measure the effect he has on the defense, not directly correlating a team with good defense to the quality of their punter.

Does having a top five punter in the league v. a replacement level punter keep points off the board, does it make teams have to drive more of the field to score?

A good defense doesn't need a great punter to be good, but how much better does having a great punter make a good defense? That's the question that needs to be asked.

Anecdotally, I would point to the Texas v. Mizzou bowl game last year for what an elite punter can do to a teams offense. If you want to tell me that Mizzou starting over 1/2 of their drives inside their own 15 yard line didn't have an affect on that game I have a bridge in New York I'd like to sell ya.

The Texas punter was the MVP of that bowl game. He’s a helluva punter.

[kccrow]

Originally Posted by KChiefs1

The Texas punter was the MVP of that bowl game. He’s a helluva punter.

I agree with him on one note, occasionally a great punter can affect a game in a big enough way that it's significant in the team winning. However, the data clearly shows it doesn't over the course of a season and it doesn't over the course of several seasons.

The point of it all, to me, is to ask yourself whether or not it's actually worth spending high dollars on a "great" punter when, statistically, it really doesn't make much of a (if any) difference?

If you can spend low draft capital, or even sign a punter as an UDFA, and he will perform in line with NFL standards at the position, there isn't a clear statistic that I've found that correlates it being any worse than the best in the game over the long-haul.

One thing I'm looking into right now is the differences between punters that are 1 standard deviation below the mean in terms of IN 20 % and those that are 1 standard deviation above the mean. This should give me a better idea of impact of a bad punter versus great punter.