Can we work out some punters?

[Eastport bills]

Sam Martin’s last punt was one of the most important plays of the game. The Bills were pushed back inside their 20 and his punt went out inside KCs 30. Now he’s been mediocre in other games but our coverage group have been inconsistent also. Hopefully we get games that we punt 2times or less.

[Mr. WEO]

2 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

It's more of a low hangtime issue with him.

 

when HC orders a punt from your own 40, not much time to hang....

[BigAl2526]

22 hours ago, Irv said:

 

Maybe he's punting closer to the opponents end zone than the other punters?

The fact that he's in the bottom half pinning opponents inside the 20 doesn't help that argument.

[ChasBB]

22 hours ago, L Ron Burgundy said:

I've been wondering if we couldn't sign Araiza back.  I'm betting this has been discussed before but....I mean, he was innocent right?

 

I may be off base I don't recall exactly how the drama ended.  I know VD was involved but isn't it always?

Here is the latest on Araiza ...

https://buffalonews.com/sports/professional/nfl/bills/buffalo-bills-matt-araiza-sand-diego-state-university/article_2f8cc95e-9933-11ee-aef6-673085793805.html

[BigAl2526]

27 minutes ago, BullBuchanan said:

Source?

I read it in a post.  When you raised the question, I checked stats on NFL.com.  Marttin has 14 punts downed inside the 20.  I counted 21 punters among the top 32 punters who have more than 14 punts inside the 20.  Seven punters have fewer punts inside the 20 than Martin.

 

https://www.nfl.com/stats/player-stats/category/punts/2023/reg/all/puntingaverageyards/desc

Edited December 13, 2023 by BigAl2526

[Irv]

44 minutes ago, BigAl2526 said:

The fact that he's in the bottom half pinning opponents inside the 20 doesn't help that argument.

Maybe he's tired.  

[BullBuchanan]

32 minutes ago, BigAl2526 said:

I read it in a post.  When you raised the question, I checked stats on NFL.com.  Marttin has 14 punts downed inside the 20.  I counted 21 punters among the top 32 punters who have more than 14 punts inside the 20.  Seven punters have fewer punts inside the 20 than Martin.

 

https://www.nfl.com/stats/player-stats/category/punts/2023/reg/all/puntingaverageyards/desc

You know that percentage matters, right? He can't punt inside the 20 when the team doesn't punt. He is 19th this year and was 17th last year and hitting htta percentage on a yearly basis is an elite level of performance when you measure over a career.

[BigAl2526]

6 hours ago, BullBuchanan said:

You know that percentage matters, right? He can't punt inside the 20 when the team doesn't punt. He is 19th this year and was 17th last year and hitting htta percentage on a yearly basis is an elite level of performance when you measure over a career.

I'm not going to go through 32 punters and figure out the percentage of every punter of punts inside the 20.  I did kind of skim through the list and Martin's percentage was nothing special compared to others.  Several punters have a far better per punt average and a far better percentage of punts inside the 20.  You are right in that Martin has been known as a punter who can pin opponents deep.  It is also true that players wear out eventually.  The Bills have to decide if that is the case for Martin or he's just having a sub-par year for some reason.

[Doc Brown]

He's good pinning a team inside the 20 this year but he's had some real bad low line drive punts that have lead to some big field position altering returns.  The biggest problem is finding a punter you trust to hold for Bass and there's only four games left.  You stick with him but there needs to be competition next year in training camp.  Whether that's Araiza or one of the other billion out of work punters looking for a job.

[2003Contenders]

10 hours ago, Eastport bills said:

Sam Martin’s last punt was one of the most important plays of the game. The Bills were pushed back inside their 20 and his punt went out inside KCs 30. Now he’s been mediocre in other games but our coverage group have been inconsistent also. Hopefully we get games that we punt 2times or less.

Excellent point.

 

Remember also that Martin did a fantastic job pinning the Bucs deep inside their own territory repeatedly in a game that wound up going down to the wire.

 

I would also say that one of the myths about punters is to look at their average punt distance. A team whose offense is terrible punts from their own side of the field most often and relies on their punter to boom it 50+ yards -- whereas, a team with an offense that moves the ball (like the Bills) is usually relying on their punter to get more hang time and less distance.

 

Not saying that Martin couldn't do a better job in certain situations -- but I don't see him as near the liability that many others do, especially when the Bills typically punt so rarely.

[BobbyC81]

On 12/12/2023 at 2:40 PM, JohnNord said:

He leaves a LOT to be desired.  Actually the entire Special Teams unit leaves a lot to be desired.  Unless they do something really big during the last part of the season, I’d expect some shakeups into next year

It’s all because they didn’t bring back Taiwan Jones.  #sarcasm

[zow2]

At this point in the season you don't mess around with the holder for Bass' field goals unless something catastrophic is happening.

[pocoboy]

8 hours ago, BigAl2526 said:

I'm not going to go through 32 punters and figure out the percentage of every punter of punts inside the 20. 

 

 Took about 2 min on pfref

[strive_for_five_guy]

13 minutes ago, pocoboy said:

 

 Took about 2 min on pfref

Man, didn’t know we have him on a deal for two more years.  When you look at his age and performance, seems like this is only going to become a bigger problem.  Agree with other posters that we need to bring in other competition next summer.

[strive_for_five_guy]

 

Found this out there.  Does not help Martin’s case for punting performance this season.
 

[NewEra]

After a day of research I’ve come to the conclusion that yes, we can work out some punters

[JohnNord]

3 hours ago, BobbyC81 said:

It’s all because they didn’t bring back Taiwan Jones.  #sarcasm

🤣 Coverage units have definitely been worse but I feel some of that is related Sam Martin’s lousy punting.  The only reason I see Matt Smiley back is some amazing turnaround.  This unit has struggled all season long.  
 

Really the one exceptional moment has been Reggie Gilliam’s monster hit to force a fumble at NYJ.  
 

 

[Warriorspikes51]

how about we never punt again instead 

[ngbills]

Spent way too much time looking at our punter. But more convinced that he sucks. First he is paid near a top 10 salary with guaranteed money. Not sure how he swung that contract. But you look at the numbers:

 

19 of his 38 punts are from inside our own 35 yard line. 9 of those 19 were not even kicked 50 yards. Only 2 of them went 60 yards. These are gross yards not net. 

 

Looking at his punts from midfield there are 11. Only 2 of the 11 pinned the opponent inside the 5 yard line. When your punting from there you have to pion your opponent at the goal line more than that. 

 

So he is not good at the long punts, not good at dropping it inside the 5. Bottomline he somewhere between average and terrible but being paid like is great to above average. 

[hondo in seattle]

4 hours ago, strive_for_five_guy said:

 

Found this out there.  Does not help Martin’s case for punting performance this season.
 

 

2nd worst net average in the NFL.

 

Punt god sure sounds tempting.