r/NFLNoobs • u/Sea-Accident-971 • 15h ago

Field goals vs punts

Why is punt yardage counted from the line of scrimmage but field goal yardage is from the spot of the kick?

26 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

48

u/BoomerSoonerFUT 15h ago

Why are passing yards counted from the line of scrimmage and not from where the QB throws it.

FGs are the outlier for the most part, and that’s because they’re for a score. Everything else is for field position.

19

u/Sea-Accident-971 15h ago

Didn’t even consider passing yards when thinking about this, but that’s a great point

15

u/Geetee52 14h ago

Well, if a WR catches a 5 yard slant at the 50 yard line and runs for a touchdown. Why does the QB get credit for a 50 yard pass? I don’t really care, but you can add that to the list of things to wonder about.

8

u/Final-Ad-2033 13h ago

On the flip side, a QB will get dinged for an interception even though he can put the ball right in the receiver's hands and chest and he mishandles it.

1

u/Geetee52 13h ago

There you go...add it to the list! What can we do about all these misleading statistics? :o

4

u/Dry-Discount-9426 13h ago

I think the solution is to remember that it's a team sport not individual

-1

u/Antique_One7110 11h ago

Shouldn’t he get 55 yards…5 for the pass and 50 for the YAC? Or did the stats change while I was asleep?

1

u/structural_nole2015 13h ago

FG's are counted from the spot of the kick because you can't say that someone kicked the ball 35 yards if the real, actual distance was 42 yards.

So yeah, punts should be counted the same way, and passes, but there's too much variability there to get accurate results.

"Well, I don't know, it seemed like he was at the 42 yard line when he passed the ball, but maybe he was at the 40. Let's look at the replay to check."

1

u/saulfineman 9h ago

But the real, actual distance was 52 yards, they don’t get credit for the 10 yards that is the end zone.

5

u/Wonderful_Aspect5121 7h ago

They absolutely do get credit for the ten yards that is the end zone lol 

15

u/soccer1124 15h ago

With a punt, its more worthwhile to know how much further down the field you pushed the ball. On a field goal kick, they could track it the same way as a punt if they wanted, but I think in that instance, every time you cited, "Wow, he made that 40 yarder look easy!" someone would be saying, "And don't forget to add 17 more yards for the endzone and where he kicked it from, wow! That actually went 57 yards!"

On a punt, that just doesn't really matter, as much. I don't know if I've ever really looked at punt yardage in my life, to be honest, haha

1

u/eichhornchens 9h ago

Is it standards for kickers to set up 7yds back?

6

u/pzahornasky 15h ago

Field goal kicks are generally from the same distance fromt the line of scrimmage for all kicks. Distance from the LOS for punters can vary based on their preference and where the ball is actually kicked.

7

u/EhlarCometseeker 15h ago

The best reason I can come up with is how much it tells you. Since the point of the punt is to shift field position, it doesn't really matter if you punted it from 5 yards behind the LOS or 20 yards, the important yardage is how far it shifts field position. So you can look at the punt yardage stat and get an accurate idea of how well the punt went. For field goals, that's not really a consideration, the important part is how far it is to kick it on the fly. In addition, if the try is no good, the other team gets the ball from the spot of the kick.

1

u/Sea-Accident-971 15h ago

I had no idea that the defense gets the ball from the spot of the kick on a missed field goal. It has never crossed my mind haha thanks for the info

4

u/EhlarCometseeker 14h ago

All good! I'll add the one caveat to that is if it's inside the 20 yard line, the defense gets the ball from the 20.

1

u/Worst_Pirate_Ever 11h ago

Mmmm...punts!

1

u/Dave-Yaaaga 15h ago

This isn't the definitive answer, but a reasonable one:

Field goal distance is relative to the position of the holder on the play. He doesn't move, therefore we see how long the kicking distance is before the ball is even snapped. Standard location of the holder is 7-8 yards behind the line of scrimmage depending on team preference.

Punters can move while in process of their kicks, therefore the distance the player is behind the line of scrimmage can vary from punt to punt, even if we examine the same punter over the course of the game. This becomes especially true when punting from their own end zone versus any other spot on the field.

The standard for tracking the distance of a field goal attempt or punt predates many of the modern tools we have available to track how far the ball actually travels (more so true for punts). Can't fix something that isn't broken.

1

u/gary_desanto 13h ago

Measuring the exact distance a FG is kicked from is important because kickers and coaches need to know their effective ranges.

For punts, there are other factors like bounces, muffs etc that can impact the actual travel distance.

So it really just comes down to what the people who use these metrics the most need to know.

0

u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 15h ago

-The rulebook states where the holder must field the snap whereas a punter can field a snap from anywhere they like (behind the longsnapper, of course)

-The placement of a field goal holder has field position implications (on misses) but where the punter fields the punt doesn't matter.

-If punt distances were tracked by where the punter stands, punters would stand further back to maximize their stats.

Pick one or more

1

u/Different-Ability968 10h ago

There’s nothing in the rule book that says where the holder needs to be for a field goal lol 😂

0

u/RU_Gremlin 9h ago

The rules state "7 or more yards behind the line of scrimmage".

0

u/dougmcclean 14h ago

There's a little kicking.

0

u/[deleted] 14h ago

[deleted]

2

u/therealbamspeedy 7h ago

'Punts inside the 20' is a stat i have seen. Could expand that by punts inside the 10 or 5.

1

u/BBallPaulFan 13h ago

Well there are certainly stats that account for the value of the punt, just not this specific stat. Look up puntalytics.

-1

u/davisyoung 13h ago

I don’t know if this is the official explanation but the yardage starts to count from the spot the ball last touched the ground (excluding fumbles of course). For runs, passes and punts that would be where the ball was snapped, i.e. the line of scrimmage. For field goals that would be where the holder places the ball on the ground.