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Hekker-Koch punting matchup is no joke
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_b3134ab5-016e-56bd-9e86-e021b0dea3d7.html
Don’t laugh, but this week’s Johnny Hekker-Sam Koch matchup is the punting equivalent of that Todd Gurley-Adrian Peterson running back battle a couple of weeks ago in Minnesota.
OK, Hekker couldn’t help it.
“No,” he said, laughing at the Gurley-Peterson comparison. “It’s gotta be a slow week in sports for punter vs. punter matchups to be a headline.”
We beg to differ. First off, there’s rarely a slow news week at Rams Park. This week alone there was a quarterback change ... more shuffling on a tattered offensive line ... a defense intent on getting its swagger back after an off-day vs. Chicago ... former Rams wide receiver Chris Givens facing his old team. And ... that matchup of marquee punters.
Baltimore’s Koch (pronounced “Cook”) enters Sunday’s contest at M&T Bank Stadium ranked first in the league in net punting, at 44.4 yards per kick. Hekker is second at 43.8 yards.
But that 1-2 matchup tells only part of the story. With the help, of course, of the Rams’ coverage unit, Hekker set the NFL’s single-season record for net punting at 44.23 yards per punt.
Koch enters Sunday’s game ahead of Hekker’s record — by about two-tenths of a yard, or a mere seven inches per punt.
Net punting subtracts yards allowed on returns and yards lost on touchbacks from the overall distance of the punt. As such, it is a true measure of field position.
“They’re really good,” Rams special teams coordinator John Fassel said, referring not just to Koch but to the Ravens’ punt coverage unit. “I think they were close to it last year, too.”
Yes, they were, with Koch finishing with a career-high net of 43.3 yards per punt.
“He’s a highly skilled guy,” Hekker said. “No offense to the other guys we’ve seen this year. He’s heads-above the best punter we’ve seen so far. So we need to be on our game.
“The man does an amazing job placing the ball where he wants to and keeping it away from returners, limiting returns. He’s just a top-notch punter and his stats speak for themselves.”
Like any other position in the NFL, there is a fraternity of punters. But Hekker, a fourth-year pro out of Oregon State, doesn’t really know Koch, a 10th-year pro out of Nebraska. And since the Rams and Ravens are in opposite conferences, they meet only once every four years in the regular season.
But Fassel knows Koch well. In fact, he helped bring Koch into the NFL in 2006 as assistant special teams coach of the Ravens. Baltimore selected Koch in the sixth round of the draft that year. Fassel also helped coach Koch in 2007, before taking the special teams coordinator job in Oakland in 2008.
“He went to Nebraska like as a linebacker,” Fassel said. “So he’s a runner, a thrower, a tackler. One of those guys, kind of like our guy, that’s just a football player who has a lot of skills. I’m so happy he’s had a great career because he’s a great guy.”
Fassel doesn’t take any credit for Koch’s early development, joking that he was smart enough not to mess him up. Since coming to the Rams as part of Jeff Fisher’s first staff in 2012, Fassel has helped groom Hekker into a Pro Bowler.
Hekker has shown continued improvement at his craft, combining distance with directional consistency. There are a lot of punters who can grip it and rip it for distance. And there are technicians adept at dropping balls inside the 20, hemming returners in with directional kicks, or hanging the ball up forever.
There aren’t many like Hekker and Koch who can do all of the above.
“Sam’s been in the league for a long time,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said via conference call Wednesday. “He’s really developed a lot of different kinds of punts that he uses that are kind of cutting edge.
“I mean, he’s doing a lot of things differently than people have done before. I see Johnny’s trying to do a couple of the same things. He’s got a line-drive ball there that he uses. So guys like that are changing the way that the special teams part of it’s played.”
The line-drive kicks can cut through a stiff wind and roll for extra yards. Koch has developed a knack for making the return team think a punt’s going one way, but then the ball goes in a different direction. Hekker says he’s been working on that as well.
In addition, Fassel said Hekker has gotten better making the punting equivalent of pre-snap and post-snap reads.
“Recognizing, are they rushing? Are they holding up?” Fassel said. “That influences his mindset on what he needs to do with the punt, whether it’s more hang time, more distance, more direction. There’s a lot of factors that come in.”
Even with all that in mind, a part of Hekker will be doing nothing more complicated than rooting for his coverage team to give up zero yards Sunday in Baltimore. And for Rams return man Tavon Austin to bust one against Koch. After all, Hekker wants to keep that net-punting record.
“Of course, I put the bug in Tavon’s ear to help me out,” Hekker said, smiling. “Sam’s having a hell of a season. If he breaks it, he deserves it. But I’m gunning for it too, hoping I can set a better record.”
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_b3134ab5-016e-56bd-9e86-e021b0dea3d7.html
Don’t laugh, but this week’s Johnny Hekker-Sam Koch matchup is the punting equivalent of that Todd Gurley-Adrian Peterson running back battle a couple of weeks ago in Minnesota.
OK, Hekker couldn’t help it.
“No,” he said, laughing at the Gurley-Peterson comparison. “It’s gotta be a slow week in sports for punter vs. punter matchups to be a headline.”
We beg to differ. First off, there’s rarely a slow news week at Rams Park. This week alone there was a quarterback change ... more shuffling on a tattered offensive line ... a defense intent on getting its swagger back after an off-day vs. Chicago ... former Rams wide receiver Chris Givens facing his old team. And ... that matchup of marquee punters.
Baltimore’s Koch (pronounced “Cook”) enters Sunday’s contest at M&T Bank Stadium ranked first in the league in net punting, at 44.4 yards per kick. Hekker is second at 43.8 yards.
But that 1-2 matchup tells only part of the story. With the help, of course, of the Rams’ coverage unit, Hekker set the NFL’s single-season record for net punting at 44.23 yards per punt.
Koch enters Sunday’s game ahead of Hekker’s record — by about two-tenths of a yard, or a mere seven inches per punt.
Net punting subtracts yards allowed on returns and yards lost on touchbacks from the overall distance of the punt. As such, it is a true measure of field position.
“They’re really good,” Rams special teams coordinator John Fassel said, referring not just to Koch but to the Ravens’ punt coverage unit. “I think they were close to it last year, too.”
Yes, they were, with Koch finishing with a career-high net of 43.3 yards per punt.
“He’s a highly skilled guy,” Hekker said. “No offense to the other guys we’ve seen this year. He’s heads-above the best punter we’ve seen so far. So we need to be on our game.
“The man does an amazing job placing the ball where he wants to and keeping it away from returners, limiting returns. He’s just a top-notch punter and his stats speak for themselves.”
Like any other position in the NFL, there is a fraternity of punters. But Hekker, a fourth-year pro out of Oregon State, doesn’t really know Koch, a 10th-year pro out of Nebraska. And since the Rams and Ravens are in opposite conferences, they meet only once every four years in the regular season.
But Fassel knows Koch well. In fact, he helped bring Koch into the NFL in 2006 as assistant special teams coach of the Ravens. Baltimore selected Koch in the sixth round of the draft that year. Fassel also helped coach Koch in 2007, before taking the special teams coordinator job in Oakland in 2008.
“He went to Nebraska like as a linebacker,” Fassel said. “So he’s a runner, a thrower, a tackler. One of those guys, kind of like our guy, that’s just a football player who has a lot of skills. I’m so happy he’s had a great career because he’s a great guy.”
Fassel doesn’t take any credit for Koch’s early development, joking that he was smart enough not to mess him up. Since coming to the Rams as part of Jeff Fisher’s first staff in 2012, Fassel has helped groom Hekker into a Pro Bowler.
Hekker has shown continued improvement at his craft, combining distance with directional consistency. There are a lot of punters who can grip it and rip it for distance. And there are technicians adept at dropping balls inside the 20, hemming returners in with directional kicks, or hanging the ball up forever.
There aren’t many like Hekker and Koch who can do all of the above.
“Sam’s been in the league for a long time,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said via conference call Wednesday. “He’s really developed a lot of different kinds of punts that he uses that are kind of cutting edge.
“I mean, he’s doing a lot of things differently than people have done before. I see Johnny’s trying to do a couple of the same things. He’s got a line-drive ball there that he uses. So guys like that are changing the way that the special teams part of it’s played.”
The line-drive kicks can cut through a stiff wind and roll for extra yards. Koch has developed a knack for making the return team think a punt’s going one way, but then the ball goes in a different direction. Hekker says he’s been working on that as well.
In addition, Fassel said Hekker has gotten better making the punting equivalent of pre-snap and post-snap reads.
“Recognizing, are they rushing? Are they holding up?” Fassel said. “That influences his mindset on what he needs to do with the punt, whether it’s more hang time, more distance, more direction. There’s a lot of factors that come in.”
Even with all that in mind, a part of Hekker will be doing nothing more complicated than rooting for his coverage team to give up zero yards Sunday in Baltimore. And for Rams return man Tavon Austin to bust one against Koch. After all, Hekker wants to keep that net-punting record.
“Of course, I put the bug in Tavon’s ear to help me out,” Hekker said, smiling. “Sam’s having a hell of a season. If he breaks it, he deserves it. But I’m gunning for it too, hoping I can set a better record.”
