Why most of your punting problems have to do with your hands (not your feet)

The paradox of punting is that 98% of the time, players’ struggles with it have more to do with their handwork than their footwork or leg swing.

It’s obvious that a kicker can kick a ball far, but they can’t always coordinate a good drop from a long snap to make it happen.

That’s why the best thing for most punters to do to continue to develop is going to take snaps with a few things in mind:

• Catch the ball away from the body. No T-Rex arms. Using your chest to catch a snap adds more things that can go wrong to the punt. 🦖

• Catch the ball pinkies together, thumbs out with fingers splayed as far apart as possible - you can almost double the size of your punter’s hands by cuing up spreading the fingers apart. We’re not trying to cup water, we’re trying to catch a snap.

• Catch as much of the back of the ball (nearest toward you) as possible. You don’t want to let the ball split through your hands to catch the middle, or even worse, front end of the ball. This causes more re-gripping, and fiddling around in the hands which creates more things that can go wrong.

If you notice, you or your punter’s best punts happen when there is the least amount of wasteful movement from the catch, to the set, to the eventual drop.

Punting is all hands.

BC