Has any team every used an intentional squib punt to try to get the ball to hit a player on the opposing team while they are running back to the returner to block? I’ve seen this happen accidentally a few times and I’ve often wondered if one could hone a punt technique to have a bouncing bomb type trajectory to give the chance for a turnover if it glances an opposing player. In any case, it would most likely be an unreturnable punt even if caught by the receiving team.
Maybe I should file this with my idea of the shitty field full of slick turf that I can practice on but other teams would have trouble with. Or to plan plays around using the refs as picks.
Not that I’m aware of. It might work once or twice as a trick play, but once opposing teams figured out that you were intentionally squibbing your punts in hopes of having it bounce off of a member of the receiving team, they’d likely (and quickly) develop a tactic to reduce its effectiveness – probably waiting an extra second before falling back to block the kicking team members, to give the punt more time to get past them (and reduce the odds of an accidental touch).
And players don’t take up all that much field space, and they’re moving, and there’s a limit to how much positional control you can get on a punt. Trying to aim to hit a player is a fool’s errand.
And, the punter has even less control over how the punt bounces. An unexpected “squib punt” might cause some chaos on the field, and might yield the result the OP hopes for (i.e., the ball hits a member of the receiving team, and can be recovered by the kicking team).
However, those odds probably aren’t great, and you’re trading off distance on the punt for that chance, meaning that, most of the time, you’re giving the receiving team better field position than you would have with a traditional punt. Giving your opponent an advantage on field position is a recipe for losing the game.
One surprise to me. Years ago as a teen I became very adept at punting the ball while holding it cross-wise so as to maintain that orientation in flight. Untouched it would bounce high, soft, and predictable, virtually eliminating the chance of it hitting on one of the pointy parts and bouncing forward hard (or backward) before my guys could down it. I’ve been waiting 40+ years for a college/NFL punter to use the same technique (when in the opponent’s half of course where distance isn’t the goal), but I have yet to see it. Some use that sideways rugby technique but frankly I think that sucks (and someone is going to block one sooner or later).
Generally the guys running back to block are along the sidelines, so it would have to be a mighty accurate coffin corner kick if you didn’t want it to go out of bounds.
That’s kind of the idea of punting on third down. That doesn’t happen very often, but it is done on third and long when the offence is trying to catch the other team off guard. Bouncing into a defensive player would be a nice bonus.
This is the same idea behind an onside kick and carries the same high-risk-only-in-certain-circumstances chance of success. It might be safer to try to kick a line drive to bounce it off an opposing rusher.
Unless it ends up past the first-down line (very unlikely if it’s bouncing off a rusher), it’s still going to the other team no matter who recovers it.
Punters (even NFL punters) are not necessarily 100% accurate on where they are able to place a punt. Back when “coffin corner” punts were the strategy that was used when you were punting from around midfield (i.e., try to put the punt out of bounds inside the opponent’s 20, preferably inside the 10), punters would, with some frequency, fail at this – they’d either put it into the end zone anyway, or put it out of bounds outside of the 20. In other words, there’s a good chance that you get even less than “a few less yards” on the kick.
Also, most teams don’t have awesome punt returners, and many punts wind up being fair caught or otherwise not returned, anyway – in the NFL so far this season, only 44% of punts have been returned.
Punting away from the returner (either out of bounds, or a high, shorter punt that will likely be fair-caught) isn’t a bad strategy if the other team has a great, dangerous punt returner (e.g., Devin Hester), but otherwise, probably isn’t worth it.
So, doing a little math here. Based on 2021 punting stats, the average punt distance is 46 yards and the average net punt yards (punt minus return) is 40.6 yards. Using the Pythagorean theorem, if a 46 yard punt was kicked from a hash mark (IE as close to the sideline as possible) and kicked perfectly so it landed right on the closest sideline, you would net 39.6 yards. So basically, unless you’re in a situation where the only way for you to lose is if the punt is returned, you’re better off keeping it in bounds.
Don’t know about punts, but in the 90s there used to be a kicker for the Vikings named Fuad Reviez that would do line drive kickoffs, different from an on-side kick because if it didn’t hit a defender and bounce back, it would still make it to near the goal line.
Chris Berman would call them “Fuad shots” on NFL Primetime, but I couldn’t find an example on Youtube.
It’s mainly for when you’re around midfield and want to pin the ball inside the 20-yard line without risking a touchback. Even coffin corner specialists would swing away if they were on their own side of the field.
I think there are two reasons we don’t see it anymore. First is that I think teams determined that kicking it high and straight and having your coverage team run down the field and down it inside the 20 was a higher percentage than a coffin corner kick. Second is that it’s a skill you have to learn and nobody knows it anymore.
And, the “high and straight” type was helped by the introduction of the “drop punt,” a different style of punt, by several NFL punters who had previously played in Australian football. If done right, a drop punt won’t “turn over,” like a normal punt does, and won’t bounce as far forward.