Steve O’Neal is credited with the longest punt in NFL history at 98 yards. It covered a good 70 yards in the air, slipped thru the hands of the returner, took a monstrous bounce, then kept rolling.
But. . . do you think the return man touched it? It’s really hard to say, given the grainy footage, but it surely looks possible. If that were the case, would that have changed anything?
Didn’t Randall Cunningham have a 99-yard punt once?
Probably, if you measure from where the kick took place, but the official records regard the line of scrimmage as the beginning. His was a good 90 or so, officially.
Check that: 91 yard punt – my bad. He had a 95 yard TD pass to boot. Don’t know why I thought 99.
Yes, it would have. It looks like the returner was at about the 34 yard line when he reached for the ball – had it been ruled that he touched the ball (it looks like it was possible that he might have touched it, either with his outstretched hand, or his foot), it’s then considered to be a “muffed punt.”
The official distance of the punt would have been 65 yards (from the New York 1, to the Denver 34), and then the remaining 33 yards of bounce (down to the 1 yard line) wouldn’t have been credited to the punt itself.
Also, the moment that a punt is muffed like that (i.e., when the return team touches the ball, but doesn’t control it), it’s now a ball that the punting team could recover (though, not advance). That film clip cuts off before the play was blown dead, but, had a Jets player been continuing to pursue the ball, he could have recovered it, and the Jets would have regained possession at the 1.
But, note that there is an official pretty close to the Denver player when he fails to field the punt. If the Bronco had, in fact, touched the ball, it was likely such a barely-there touch that the official on the play didn’t see it, and didn’t rule it that way. Today, we would have had a high-def video replay which could have been used to review (and potentially change) the ruling, but there’s nothing in that clip to suggest that it was a clear case of touching.
Per NFL scoring rules, the distance of a punt is measured to “the point at which the impetus of the punt ends”. A glancing touch that doesn’t change the direction or impetus of the kick wouldn’t affect the measured distance. So, still 98 yards.
Although the “glancing touch” doesn’t change the direction or impetus, it definitely does change the status of the play from a live punt to a muffed punt – and makes it a live ball for recovery by the kicking team (which it isn’t when it still hasn’t been touched by the returning team).
That said, based on what you quoted, I will admit that I’m now fuzzy on whether this case would change the actual measurement of the punt’s total distance.
I was disappointed the day I learned that this punt was not, in fact, a punt that traveled 99 yards through the air.
Much as I was disappointed to learn that Eddie LeBaron’s 2-inch touchdown pass to Dick Bielski in 1960 was in the air for further than 2 inches. 
(However, as O’Neal’s punt occurred in Denver – if a punt was ever going to travel 98 yards in the air, it would have been there.)