Panthers’ Johnny Hekker ranked 3rd-best punter in NFL

Whenever there’s a conversation about the best punters in the NFL, Johnny Hekker’s name almost always comes up, which makes sense, because he’s one of the best punters in the NFL. Since his rookie year in 2012, Hekker has been an absolute weapon and during the early part of his career (2012-16), he was arguably the only weapon on his team and that’s mostly because he played for a Rams team that went 31-48-1 during that five-year span.

A big reason why he had such a high net average is because he excelled at forcing his opponent to call for a fair catch. Hekker forced 31 fair catches last season, which was the second-highest number in the NFL. Coverage teams love when they see a fair catch, because it means less work for them.

Hekker’s net punting average was also high because he didn’t allow very many returns. Of his 81 punts in 2021, only 27 of them were returned, which means 54 of them were either downed, went out of bounds or ended with a fair-catch.

Hekker has also mastered the art of pinning his opponents deep in their own territory. Hekker put 48.1% of his punts inside the 20 last season, which was the second-best percentage in the NFL (From a pure numbers standpoint, he actually led the NFL in punts inside the 20 with a total of 39).