Punting distance screamed for attention when A.J. Cole unloaded a 72-yard missile against Miami in Week 1. The ball tore through Allegiant Stadium, landed at the Dolphins’ 6 and gave the crowd exactly what a booming punt should provide: spectacle. Then Malik Washington returned it 17 yards.
Later, Cole faced a different problem. Las Vegas punted from its own 42 with 3:40 left, and Cole hit a 55-yarder that died at the Miami 3. Not an inch of runway. No return. Just a football sitting beside the goal line and a Dolphins offense staring at 97 yards of grass.
The two punts produced the same 55 yards of net field position. They did not create the same problem for Miami.
That distinction gets to the heart of punting distance. A long kick can win the visual argument and still lose part of the tactical one. Great punting asks harder questions: Where did the returner catch it? How long did the coverage unit have to arrive? Which sideline did the ball attack? Where did the next offense have to start?
The leg matters.
Control matters more.
The box score starts with the loudest number
Gross average remains the first punting number most fans see because it feels clean. Divide total punt yards by attempts and the leg has a résumé.
Through three weeks of 2026, Pro Football Reference lists the league average at 47.9 gross yards per punt and 41.9 net yards. Six yards disappear once returns, touchbacks and other field-position costs enter the calculation.
Cole makes the gap easy to see. NFL.com credits him with a 51.2-yard gross average through three games, but a 47.2-yard net average. He has also put six of his 12 punts inside the 20.
That four-yard difference is not bookkeeping clutter. It is the part of punting distance that the receiving team gets to fight back for.
A returner with open grass can erase a huge kick in seconds. One missed lane by the coverage unit can turn a 60-yard bomb into a mediocre exchange of territory. The punt still looks gorgeous in the air. Miami, or any other receiving team, cares only where the whistle blows.
Net average gets closer but still misses the point
Net average fixes one obvious problem. It subtracts what the return team takes back.
Even that number can flatten two very different plays.
Cole’s Week 1 punts against Miami prove it. His 72-yarder reached the 6 before Washington returned it to the 23. Later, the 55-yarder stopped at the 3. Each play shifted the field by 55 yards.
Only one forced Miami to take a snap with its quarterback almost standing on the paint of his own end zone.
That matters. A quarterback at the 3 cannot drift backward casually. An offensive tackle cannot lose cleanly around the corner. One false step, one bad exchange or one free rusher can put two points on the scoreboard.
Miami felt that pressure immediately. During the possession after Cole’s punt, the Dolphins eventually took a sack that pushed the ball back to the 1.
This is why punting distance and even net average need field-position context. A 44-yard punt that dies at the 4 can hurt an offense more than a 58-yarder that becomes a touchback.
“Inside the 20” helps, but that bucket has the same weakness. The 19 and the 2 both count once. No special-teams coach treats them as the same result.
Hang time gives the coverage unit a fighting chance
Now watch the ball instead of the yard marker.
A low missile gets downfield fast. So does the returner once he catches it.
A towering punt changes the race. While the football hangs, two gunners sprint outside the numbers, trying to rip through vice blocks and arrive before the returner squares his shoulders.
That is where hang time becomes hidden yardage.
PFF has tracked Cole at roughly 4.5 seconds of hang time per punt early in 2026. A fraction of a second matters here. A coverage player running near full speed can eat several yards before the football comes down.
The skill looks almost contradictory. A punter must explode through the ball without flattening its flight. Too much line-drive power and he outkicks his coverage. Chase too much height and precious field position disappears.
Hitting the sweet spot means threading a needle with your foot while rushers charge through the protection.
The best kick is not always the one that travels farthest.
It is the one that arrives on schedule.
The sideline becomes another defender
Directional punting turns the field itself into part of the coverage unit.
Drive the ball toward the numbers, then farther toward the chalk, and the returner loses half his menu. He cannot plant and escape outside when outside no longer exists.
That changes how the gunners attack too. Instead of defending the full width of the field, they can squeeze toward a known landing zone.
Johnny Hekker built much of his reputation on that kind of control during a career that includes four first-team All-Pro selections. His best punts were never just exhibitions of leg strength. He manipulated launch angle, spin and location to make the catch uncomfortable.
The same principle explains why teams sometimes gladly sacrifice five yards of punting distance. A 50-yarder into the middle can hand a returner two directions. Send a 45-yarder scraping toward the boundary and he may have none.
Fans see five lost yards.
The coverage team sees the sideline doing free labor.
A returner can ruin a beautiful punt
Football history has supplied the warning for decades.
When Devin Hester waited deep, the danger began before he touched the ball. The wrong kick could give one of football’s most dangerous returners a runway, a cutback lane and enough room to turn coverage players into traffic cones.
That fear still shapes punt strategy.
Teams do not merely ask, “How far can our punter hit this?” They ask where the returner stands, how aggressively the opponent sets up returns and whether their coverage group can win outside.
The gunner’s job can look brutal. He may have two blockers waiting at the line, forming the vice. Then he has to split them, run 40 or 50 yards at full speed, find the football and arrive under control.
Lose that race and punting distance can become a liability.
A 60-yard punt with a three-step head start for the returner is not domination. It is an invitation.
Chargers special teams coordinator Ryan Ficken gave a much harsher version after San Francisco broke an 83-yard punt-return touchdown during the 2026 preseason. Ficken remains Los Angeles’ special teams coordinator this season.
“It was a great punt. Great operation with that, and it was poor coverage.”
Seven seconds of football, three blunt sentences.
The ball can come off the punter’s foot perfectly and still end in disaster. One gunner loses outside leverage. Another coverage player gets sealed inside. Suddenly, a kick that looked flawless overhead has a returner sprinting untouched down the boundary.
That is why judging the punter alone misses half the play.
Tracking data can see the space around the catch
Traditional punting stats tell us where the ball went.
Player tracking can tell us what the returner saw when it arrived.
NFL Next Gen Stats and AWS developed Expected Punt Return Yards to estimate how many yards a returner should gain from the moment he fields the ball. The model uses tracking information such as player location, speed, acceleration and orientation.
That gets much closer to the real problem.
Freeze the play at the catch. One returner has two coverage players five yards away and a sideline closing fast. Another sees a clean seam, attached blockers and ten yards to build speed.
The punts might have identical punting distance.
They are not remotely identical kicks.
This kind of measurement also helps separate the punter from his coverage unit. If the ball lands exactly where the call wanted it but a gunner gets trapped inside, the resulting return should not erase everything the punter did well.
Special teams have always shared responsibility. Better tracking data can finally describe more of that shared work.
A great punt can call the next three plays
Field position does not score points by itself.
It changes the conditions under which points get chased.
Pin an offense at its own 3 and the play caller starts thinking about the end line behind the quarterback. The defense knows it too. Edge rushers can attack with the possibility of a safety. Interior linemen can crowd run lanes. Even a holding penalty suddenly carries enormous weight.
The offense often responds with caution.
A run into the middle. Then a quick throw. Perhaps another run if third down stays manageable.
Three snaps later, the opposing punt team can be walking onto the field.
That is the quiet violence of flipping the field. A punter can dictate an offensive series without appearing in the next play.
Cole’s 55-yarder against Miami captured the idea better than his 72-yarder.
The shorter kick did not need another yard.
It needed the ball to stop.
The next punting stat should measure control
The NFL has spent years teaching fans to see football beyond the old box score. Quarterbacks now get measured through pressure data and completion models. Ball carriers can be compared with expected rushing outcomes. Player tracking can show where defenders and blockers stood when a play changed.
Punting deserves the same treatment.
Gross punting distance will always have value because field position still starts with how far the ball travels. Net average improves the picture. Hang time, punts inside the 20, fair catches and return yards sharpen it again.
None of them fully captures control.
A better public evaluation would ask how much usable space the punter left the returner. It would measure where the ball landed relative to the sideline. Analysts could examine how close the coverage arrived at the catch and how much territory the kick gained relative to the starting field position.
Expected Punt Return Yards already points in that direction. The NFL and AWS built the model from player-tracking data precisely because the geometry at the catch matters, not merely the number beside “PUNT” in a gamebook.
The sport does not need to stop celebrating the 70-yard rocket. Those punts remain absurd feats of timing and power, and Cole’s Week 1 blast deserved the reaction it got.
But the next time a football climbs into the lights, distance should be only the first question.
Where did it land?
Who was waiting underneath it?
How much room did the returner have?
And when the offense finally broke the huddle, how close was its quarterback standing to his own goalpost?
That is where punting distance stops being the story and field control begins.
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FAQs
Why does punting distance not tell the whole story?
A long punt can still give up return yards. Hang time, placement, coverage and the opponent’s starting field position determine how valuable the kick really was.
What is the difference between gross and net punting average?
Gross average measures how far the punt travels. Net average accounts for return yardage and touchbacks, so it better reflects the field position gained.
Why does hang time matter on a punt?
More hang time gives coverage players time to reach the returner. That can eliminate open space before the return begins.
Can a shorter punt be better than a longer punt?
Yes. A shorter punt that dies near the goal line can hurt an offense more than a longer kick returned into open space.
What is Expected Punt Return Yards?
NFL Next Gen Stats and AWS use tracking data to estimate how many yards a returner should gain after fielding a punt.
