Michael Koenen 9th Worst Punter in 2009

Football Outsiders rank the Top 10 and Bottom 10 Punters in 2009. This is after filtering out the value of the punt coverage teams, and adjusting for weather and altitude (explained in the link). Even though he was great on Kickoffs, Koenen was the 9th worst in individual Punt Value this past season. In addition to that, the Falcons had the 2nd worst Punt Coverage Value of the 20 teams listed. They finished the year tied with Denver for 2nd worst overall Punt Unit (behind Green Bay). Quite a change from last year's record breaking Punt Coverage team.

over 2 years ago orang3b 13 comments 0 recs |

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Good lord

That blindsided me. I knew his average was down, but I really thought Koenen’s pinpoint accuracy helped to make up for that. Hopefully it’s just a down year….

by Dave Choate on Jan 18, 2010 9:48 PM EST reply actions

Thinking the same thing.

by orion12 on Jan 19, 2010 12:59 AM EST up reply actions

Apparently

The coverage team was so poor that punts that were fair catches last season were returned for 20-ish yards this season. That, plus the shorter punts were working together to make this one of the league’s worst punt units…

"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." - Aaron Levenstein

by orang3b on Jan 19, 2010 1:46 PM EST up reply actions

You know, I'm probably implying causation and correlation and mastication

But it seems to me that the better a team gets, the worse it is on special teams. You get better depth, that depth seems incapable of playing on special teams. Or I’m drunk. Again.

by Dave Choate on Jan 19, 2010 3:26 PM EST up reply actions

Interesting (or maybe you're just drunk)

Are you saying that in general terms, or for the Falcons specifically?

I think there were a lot of reasons the Special Teams weren’t very good this year:
1) Jason Elam hitting the wall (obviously)
2) Carrying guys like Marty Booker, who didn’t contribute on ST, which lead to…
3) Starters (or heavy rotation guys) like Stephen Nicholas, Kroy Biermann, sometimes even Curtis Lofton pulling double-duty on ST
4) Injuries to ST studs like Tony Gilbert, which lead to street FA’s (like Aaron Stecker) being put on coverage teams by the end of the year

"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." - Aaron Levenstein

by orang3b on Jan 19, 2010 4:56 PM EST up reply actions

I'm saying in general terms

And you just hit on some of the reasons.

Generally, if you’re updating your receiving corps, you’re getting better receivers; same with corners, etc. But if that’s the case, are they equally well-suited to play special teams? Are you getting guys who are better football players, or better position specific players? This is probably an illusion cooked up by my addle-prated brain, but it’s interesting to me that the team made a huge effort to upgrade its depth chart defensively in the off-season and we appear to have picked up players who were not as capable on the ST end of things.

/end rambling

by Dave Choate on Jan 19, 2010 5:19 PM EST up reply actions

That's a good point

When HD got hurt, they needed a WR – in comes Booker, who didn’t play ST.
Flip side is Tony Gilbert, who is great on ST, but I wouldn’t feel great about at MLB if Lofton ever got hurt.

"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." - Aaron Levenstein

by orang3b on Jan 19, 2010 7:02 PM EST up reply actions