In Infinite Jest there’s a punter for the Cardinals that has superhuman range. I think something like 90 yards. Now, he’d clearly be the best punter in NFL history, but where would he rank as an overall player? Great? Best ever? Completely game breaking?
While having a good leg is great, punters in the NFL are rarely called upon to punt for 90 yards. If you’re being called on to punt from inside your own 10 yard line a lot your team has a lot of other problems that the world’s best punter isn’t going to fix.
The ability to ensure the opposing team starts at or behind their own 20 yard line, and rarely has the opportunity to return a punt would be a competitive advantage, but not a game changer. He’d never be the most important player on a team, let alone in the league.
There would also be some disadvantages to kicking a punt that far. A lot of punt returns for touchdowns happen because the punter kicked it so far, the kicking team doesn’t have a chance to get downfield and stop the returner before they get up to full speed.
Now what would be a massive game-changer is if he learned to kick field goals. Imagine being able to try a FG anytime a drive stalled past your own 30 yard line. Need to get into FG range at the end of a game to win it? No problem!
Accuracy is more important…if the guy can routinely punt the ball out of bounds inside the 10, that would be a huge advantage.
Good point, you’d outpunt your coverage on all long punts, pretty much ensuring that he receiving team would end up roughly in the same field position as if you kicked a 60 yard punt. They’d get the first 20 yards almost unopposed.
Depends; if he can punt it that far he could presumably punt it remarkably high as well, giving the team the time to get down the field.
I haven’t read the book, but per the OP he can kick it 90+ yards. They’ll never even need a coverage team unless he’s kicking from inside his own 10 (or 20, if we’re counting 90 yards from the kick, instead of the line of scrimmage).
As I recall, his hang-time was also prodigious. I don’t recall it being described as game-breaking, and DFW was enough of a sports fan that I think he would have mentioned it. Orin was definitely described as a “best in the league” “once in a lifetime” type of star, however.
If he’s putting it out of the endzone then the receiving team is always getting the ball on the 20 anyway. It’s the equivalent of a 60 yard kick but with the benefit of no runback possible. If he can kick 90 yards AND target the coffin corner then he becomes more valuable.
Assuming he’s kicking from the 10 yard line, and can put it 90 yards in the air, the receiving team catches it on the goal line and IMO would get at least a 20 yard run back. If he’s kicking from the 20 yard line then he puts the ball out of the endzone and they get the ball on the 20. That’s the most valuable situation. If he’s kicking from the 30, a regular punter will kick roughly 50 yards and the ball lands on the 20 - then it becomes a matter of coverage.
I looked up some average starting field positions and punts per game. If you assume the other team starts on the 20 he’d be worth around 40 yards of field position. Not sure what the point equivalent of that would be or bow that compares to, say, Calvin Johnson over the average receiver.
[QUOTE=DFW]
Orin Incandenza was the best natural coffin-corner man he’d live to see.
[/QUOTE]
In the fiction, he was traded for like an offensive lineman and a couple of picks or something, right? So as written he wasn’t supposed to be game-breaking.
If anybody could do what he did, I think they would be literally superhuman, though. His hang-time was supposed to be double or more everyone’s in the real world. I don’t know why just because he could kick it 90 yards that would mean he would do it every time. From his own 30 he’d have to give about as much effort as your average punter would have to give from about the 50 to drop it at the ten. With that much hang time your coverage is in great shape to make a play on the ball, and you can pretty much forget about ever giving up a return. I think it would be a pretty big deal, when you consider that great defenses give up 25 or so yards per drive and terrible defenses give up 35-40 yards per drive.
If he had good coffin corner accuracy and huge hang time, it would essentially be impossible to have a return. It would make him significantly more valuable. Still not sure about game changing, because you could abandon your return guy, stack the line of scrimmage and go for more blocks.
In addition to the other physical impossibilities, the 90 yard kicks likely could only occur when playing on outdoor stadiums. There’s no way he could double his hang time without hitting the roof structures of domed stadiums. And if he plays for the Cardinals, that means at least 10 games/year indoors (U of Phoenix Stadium and the Edward Jones Dome, home of the Rams (for now.))
Plus, he’d lose money paying for damage to the scoreboard every time they played at Dallas. 