I n my endless search for new ways to procrastinate, I started watching Spike’s oddly addicting but overly stereotypical football/sex comedy “Blue Mountain State.” In a recent episode, the main character gets demoted to special teams, and all of the normal labels apply — the specialists are isolated, deemed not to be “real” players, and are given hand-me-downs from equipment to girls.

It is a common if not outdated meme, and the underlying message isn’t particularly subtle: in the football world, punters and kickers are inconsequential.

If only it were true.

Despite perception, kickers have received their due (and scorn) because of their immediate impact on the scoreboard. But punters have rarely been acknowledged, despite their importance. A good punter is a tremendous asset in the field position realm of the game — on a single kick, good punters can account for a disparity of 20 yards, and over the course of the game, can routinely pin opponents deep within their own territory. The contrasts are stark, but they’re created through the smallest of differences — half a second separates good and average hang time, and the angle of the boot determines whether a kick will sail to its intended destination or land at an entirely different part of the field. A good punter can hit the coffin corner when needed and boom it when backed up, all the while giving his gunners enough time to either down the ball or meet the returner before he’s able to make much of a run.

What does this mean? Shocking as it sounds, a punter can quite literally win a game for his team. Hard to digest, but consider a Sports Illustrated profile on Dave Zastudil of the Cleveland Browns from this past December. In a 6-3 win over Buffalo, he “punted nine times; seven of the boots forced the Bills to start from inside their 20, and three of those put them inside their five. The Bills have a fine return man in Roscoe Parrish, but Zastudil and the Browns’ cover team limited him to seven yards.”

Zastudil is one example. Mike Scifres of the San Diego Chargers was the most important player in the Chargers’ 23-17 Wild Card Playoff win over the Indianapolis Colts in 2009. All six of his punts were downed inside the 20-yard line — including two inside the 10 — and his net average was an astonishing and record-breaking 51.7 yards per kick. Colts coach Tony Dungy called Scifres the game’s MVP, and for good reason.

But beyond these scarce accolades, punters still do not receive their due. It is easy to see why kickers such as Adam Vinatieri are such assets, while ones like Scott Norwood are painful failures. But punters are frequently forgotten — they don’t put up points (at least tangibly), and they only come in when your offense, much to your frustration, has stalled. The punter is an afterthought when you’re still trying to figure out how the quarterback missed an open receiver, and if the returner has enough wheels to make you pay.

So too is the punter treated on a broader scale. Look no further than last week’s Hall of Fame class of 2010 announcement, when once again, a punter was not elected. Of the 260 people honored since 1963, exactly zero have been full-time punters. Some players have pulled double-duty, but there has been no equivalent to Jan Stenerud, the lone true placekicker in the Hall. While it remains difficult for a kicker to be enshrined, with Stenerud’s precedent set, it becomes all the more plausible that someone like Vinatieri, for instance, will one day have a plaque in Canton.

Not so with punters. The standard-bearer for the cause, willingly or not, is Ray Guy, commonly believed to be the best ever at the position. The only punter to be selected in the first round, his punting ability is the thing of folklore — he’d put so much leg behind his punts that he’d boot himself in the face; teams had to raise their scoreboards because of how high his kicks sailed.

Although all-time greats are currently active, like Jeff Feagles and Shane Lechler, it seems illogical that one of them would get into the Hall before Guy, who has been on the ballot for 17 years but has yet to be elected. Guy was one of the 25 finalists for the 2010 class but once again came up empty-handed.

It’s an injustice, to be sure, but Guy and his ilk may not be ignored for much longer. Although seemingly obvious, the field position game has received more attention in the media in recent seasons — as if it was difficult to see the difference between a drive beginning at the 30 or starting at the 10. Not a year ago, Lechler inked a contract to make him the highest paid punter in NFL history — in a league where the median salary in 2009 was well under $1 million, the $3 million the Oakland Raiders pay Lechler annually is an eye-opener. And with each passing year, the groundswell beneath Guy’s candidacy continues to grow.

But until he or another punter is enshrined, it will remain a position that, despite its monumental importance, will be seen as inferior, furthering the “Blue Mountain State” idea that specialists are just a tertiary appendage to the “real” football players. Given the effect a punter, good and bad, can have on a game, that cannot stand.
Wyndam Makowsky does not know that both college and pro football are in their off-seasons. Let him know at makowsky “at” stanford.edu.