Mile High Report
The Denver Broncos drafted the only punter taken in the draft this year and let veteran former Bronco draftee, Riley Dixon, walk as a free agent. So far, Jeremy Crawshaw has been extremely good at the main job of the punter, which is maximizing field position. He has the most punts downed inside the 20 and the 10, but this has to tempered since he has the most punts with 57 in 11 games. He is near the top in % inside the 20 and the 10, but not leading.
His net average has suffered because he is focusing on direction and hangtime. His gross average and his net average are about average for the NFL. He has the third most touchbacks with 6 (two tied for most with 8).
Last season, I devised a metric that looks at punts downed inside the 10 and gives more value the closer you get to the goal line – with a punt downed at the 1 getting the punter 10 points, at the 2 getting 9 points, etc. While Crawshaw has 12 points downed inside the 10, he only has one downed inside the five (at the 5). So his precision punt points are average for the league at 28.
Riley Dixon (and the punt coverage team) were absolutely deadly at downing punts inside the five last season.
Dixon got 6!! downed at the 1 last season. Dixon finished with 22 punts downed inside the 10 last season which was a record for the Broncos (data only goes back to 1994). Dixon is currently punting for the Buccaneers and has been a little better than Crawshaw at precision punting so far this season.
A recently found that PFF has average hangtime for punters. Crawshaw is currently 23rd in hangtime at 4.35 seconds. JK Scott is currently 2nd with an average hangtime of 4.75 seconds. I have to wonder how much the poor punting in the game against the Raiders hurt Crawshaw’s hangtime average.
If you care about PFF grades, Crawshaw currently has an overall grade of 71.7 which is 14th. As I do every year I will do my full league punting analysis at the end of the season.
For what it’s worth, there have been 62 punts downed inside the five this season and the most common outcome from those drives is a punt – 40% of the time. The next most common outcome is a TD at 19%.
