KUSA – There is a time in just about every game where every team has fourth down on its own 20 or so and it needs its punter to flip the field and have the opponent start at its own 20.
Riley Dixon was poor in executing this task last season, even though he punted half his games in altitude.
Marquette King has been really good at the flip-field punt, even though half his punts where at Oakland, where the elevation is 43 feet, or 5,237 feet below Denver.
This is the primary reason why King is now a Bronco and Dixon is now a New York Giant after he was officially traded Monday for a conditional, seventh-round pick in the 2019 draft.
Naturally in today’s analytics-dependent sports world, they keep stats on the flip-the-field punt. A Vikings’ oriented website purplePTSD.com compiled punting data and separated it into long-field punting average and short-field punting average.
On the long field, Dixon ranked 32nd out of the 33 punters last season with a 45.04-yard average.
When the Broncos needed their punter to bail out its struggling offense, Dixon too often didn’t deliver.
King ranked sixth at the long-field punt with a 50.56-yard average. Give him some altitude and look out.
Or back up.
The only punter worse than Dixon at delivering the long-field punt last season was the Giants’ Brad Wing, who averaged 44.95 yards. The Giants released Wing in March and replaced him with Dixon, who is only a minor upgrade on the booming punt.
Wait a minute. Maybe not. The elevation of East Rutherford, N.J. is 3 feet or 5,277 feet below that of Denver. Factor in altitude and Dixon may well have the weakest leg in the league.
Now wait another minute. Woeful as he is at the long-field punt, Dixon is the best when operating with a short field.
No. 1.
Short-field punts are those from your own 40 or closer. On short punts, Dixon covered 83.01 percent of the yards he had until the goal line. (If a punt from the 50 is downed at the 10, that’s an 80 percent score).
No other punter scored better than 78 percent – although King ranked No. 3 at 77.82 percent, a tick behind runner-up Thomas Morstead at 77.9 percent.
But in Denver, where the defense has been great and the offense has struggled the past three years, field position is huge.
When the strong-legged King became available, and the Broncos were able to get him at a team-friendly $2 million per year, Dixon became expendable.
When punting in Denver, it’s a shame to waste its altitude.
