RIP Ray Guy

Also, number of touchbacks (lack thereof), punts not returned/fair caught. All kinds of things we can’t look up. Which is why you sometimes have to just trust what you saw.

 

That is exactly what separates yards-per-punt from net yards-per-punt. And his net yards per punt was average even for his era.

 

Was it a trade? I thought Gogolak played out his option and signed with the Giants as a free agent. Then the leagues decided to merge because they didn’t want to start bidding wars just to keep their own players.

 

More than anybody would want to know on the subject.

2021 NFL full league punting analysis and breakdown - Mile High Report

 

Back in the 60s and 70s you had guys like Erxleben and Skladany, who punted and kicked in college
Both just punted in the NFL
I can’t recall if there was a guy who did both in the NFL
Gino Cappaletti in the AFL, maybe

 

Pete Gogolak is an important figure in football history. he was the first soccer style kicker (he had a younger brother who was the first draft pick of the Redskins in 1966).

Secondly, in 1965 the Giants had a quarterback named Bob Timberlake who was also their kicker. He went 1 for 15. In desperation, the Giants signed Gogolak from the Bills, and broke the unwritten agreement the AFL and NFL had where the leagues would not sign players from the other league. AFL teams, having just signed a new television deal with NBC, started signing NFL stars and a merger quickly came about.

 

Don't know how it relates to all of this, but Paul Hornung needs to be mentioned in this discussion. PK but not punt for the powerful Packers.

 

Field position for one thing, PC. Insofar as Guy is concerned, he seemed to place his punts well. You and I are old geezers, but the coffin corner meant something back in the day. Hang time, too. Guy was on very good teams and Madden used him well. Don’t really recall how Flores used him, but will admit Guy was not as good toward the end of his career. But, it was a great career.

 

In the 60's if a kicker or a punter did not play a position they frequently served as a kicker/punter. The last guy I remember doing both was Frank Corral on the 1981 Rams.

 

With 40-man rosters, wasting two roster positions on punters and placekickers was a luxury.

And just imagine when 30-player rosters was considered a barrier!

A brief history of roster sizes in the NFL - Hogs Haven

 

That is some of it. Anyway, where are you seeing career net rankings? The only list I saw defies logic.

 

You can see the top 50 here:

https://www.footballdb.com/leaders/career-punting-netavg

Number one is 44.5.
Number fifty is 40.1.

I don’t know exactly where Ray Guy ranks but his average is 36.8.

Also worth noting from the stats: he does not rank in the top 50 for punts inside the 20… but he is 8th all time for touchbacks.