By K C JOYNERPublished: January 24, 2009
The New York Times
The voting for the 2009 class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame will take place Saturday, and it will once again not include a candidate for the most underrepresented position in football —punter. The roster of immortals in Canton, Ohio, includes a player from each of the other 23 starting positions, offensive and defensive coaches, owners and administrators of every sort and even one supervisor of officials (Shorty Ray). But nary a pure punter graces the list.
This omission is doubly glaring when one considers the case of Ray Guy. Guy significantly improved what was already a championship-caliber franchise when he was drafted in the first round by the Oakland Raiders in 1973. His versatility and overall excellence were evident throughout his 14-year career, which included three Super Bowl championships with the Raiders.
Guy is one of only five eligible players who are not in the Hall despite having at least six consensus All-Pro nominations and nine over all. The other 45 made it. He is also one of only two players on the N.F.L.’s 75th anniversary All-Time team not in the Hall.
“We knew no matter what happened in a game, Guy would be able to pin the other team back,” Willie Brown, the Raiders’ Hall of Fame cornerback, said. “He had more of an impact on our team than Stenerud had on Kansas City,” Brown added, referring to Jan Stenerud, the only pure place-kicker in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
So why hasn’t Guy received the league’s ultimate individual honor? The primary impediment is a misperception of his statistical dominance. The Holy Grail of punting statistics is net average, and Guy’s highest season ranking was second.
This leads his detractors to say that Guy, the first punter to be drafted in the first round, was all hype, but that argument does not take into account that the league did not track all of the statistics necessary to calculate net-punting average during Guy’s first three seasons. His career started in 1973, but the N.F.L. did not keep a count of the number of touchbacks and punt-return yards gained against specific punters until 1976.
This hurts Guy because his first three years were his best. There is, however, a way to measure his dominance. Most teams use only one punter a year, so it is possible in most cases to generate a subtotal net average that subtracts punt-return yards out of a punter’s gross yards.
When the punting numbers from 1973 to 1975 are recalculated using this method, Guy’s statistical dominance becomes clear. He was second in this category with a 41.1-yard mark in 1973, an impressive showing for a rookie. But his real value was illustrated after the N.F.L. implemented a rule change before the 1974 season. Up to that point, everyone on the punt team could rush downfield to cover a kick immediately after the snap. The new rule limited that right to two gunners and forced all other blockers to stay behind the scrimmage line until the ball was kicked.
That change made hang time more important, and that is why Guy posted totals in 1974 and 1975 that gave him a Babe Ruth-like lead over the rest of the league.
These figures do not take into account touchbacks, but Guy had such a huge net-average lead in 1974 that were he to be given 13 touchbacks and all of his competitors none, he would have still led the league in net average. The situation was similar in 1975.
That illustrates his peak performance in net average. But he also fared well in net average in the other years of his career. Guy ranks fourth on the list of punters who played at least five seasons from 1976 to 1986.
The second complaint about Guy is that he was said to be the punting equivalent of a fastball pitcher in baseball — all power and no control. His detractors say that he led the league in touchbacks four times while leading the league only once in inside-the-20-yard-line punts.
But this approach fails to take into account that measuring in raw volumes does not put these statistics into a proper attempt-based context. Once again, take a look at how Guy fared against his competitors from 1976 to 1986. His No. 3 ranking here shows Guy was a master at short-range punting.
The other undervalued part of Guy’s statistics is how valuable his high hang times were in preventing punt returns.
The 1973-76 totals partly illustrate this, but Guy ranks third in the 1976-86 comparisons. Considering that he is being compared to punters who played as few as five seasons, his dominance is even more evident.
In the end, football coaches want three things from their punter — the ability to hit a long punt when the offense is caught deep in its own territory, to be able to pin the ball inside an opponent’s 20 and to give coverage teams time to get downfield.
Guy had a combination of these skills wholly unmatched among his peers. If that does not say Hall of Famer, what does?
K C Joyner is the author of “Blindsided: Why the Left Tackle is Overrated and Other Contrarian Football Thoughts.”