The search for the saddest punt in the world | Chart Party

To punt is to give up, and in the 21st century, NFL teams have given up nearly 50,000 times. Most of those punts were reasonable decisions. But a few were so cowardly, and in such defiance of all reason, that they must not be forgotten. In this episode of Chart Party, it’s our mission to find them.

CORRECTIONS:

3:43 - I misread this line. The rule was changed prior to the 2016 season.

8:39 - Specifically at the opponent’s 25-yard line, you’ll notice that there’s a significant decline in the green “go for it” total. This data was found through Pro-Football-Reference’s Game Play Finder. Since this tool only returns 500 plays at a time, I had to pull the 46,000-plus punts through a series of smaller searches. This gave me just 39 “go for it”s at the opponent’s 25; however, if I ran the search in a different sequence, it gave me a more expected total of 111. For reasons I can’t explain, this discrepancy only shows up exactly at the opponent’s 25. Rather than patching in this total, I decided to leave the chart as is so as to preserve its consistency, but the actual total is likely closer to 111 than 39. The Game Play Finder is like an F1 car: it’s very powerful, but it has to be handled very carefully.

9:45 - This was Hekker’s gross punting average. I probably should have used his net punting average instead, which is closer to 40 than 45.8.

10:50 - A bit of a miscalculation on my part. In the 21st century overtimes have occurred once every 539 games, not once every 483 games.

12:00 - We believe there’s an error in the play-by-play report. This play likely occurred near the beginning of the fourth quarter, not the end of the third.

31:01 - The third Dolphins drive is slightly misplaced; it’s a few yards off from where it should be.

36:07 - These two field goal attempts are shown in the wrong order. The Steelers’ attempt should be on the left side of the screen, and the Falcons’ on the right.

36:19 - This chart title should read, “with five or fewer seconds left in the half or game.” Plays at the end of the second quarter were included in this sample. Additionally, hail marys as defined here are even more rare than I claimed: four plays found their way into the sample that were actually turnovers that resulted in touchdowns in the other direction. Hail mary touchdowns are actually 12-for-780 in this sample, not 16-for-780.

39:08 - I misspoke. These two punts came on fourth and 11, not fourth and 13.

40:31 - I can't believe I did this. The Bills are not Buffalo's only major pro sports team. I forgot about the NHL's own Buffalo Sabres. Sincere apologies.

[rileyhart]

John Bois could make a Chart Party about why my face is objectively the worst face ever conceived and I’d still like the video

[jroggs]

"Here are the 10 saddest punts in history."
Ha, a fine lesson on how a losing mentality leads to losing resul-
"The perpetrators went a combined 6-3-1 and even one of the losers went on win the Super Bowl that season."
...I don't understand this game at all.

[thirdand]

My high school football coach on 4th and 1 or less: "If y'all can't gain one yard, y'all don't deserve to win."

[QemeH]

I like how with most of these it's "Why did they not try the field goal?" or "Why did they not go for it?" - but with the number 1 spot it's literally "Why didn't they do *anything* else?"

[nikolaiix]

I wonder if the musicians that recorded these jazz tunes ever thought their music would be played over a 54 minute long video about punting.

[Diegofps]

That was the most brilliant 54 minute setup for a joke I've ever seen.

[Beanly]

"this is the city of Buffalo's only pro sports team"

Tell me how you really feel about the Sabres, Jon

[freddier]

“Well, obviously they lost. And then they came out of absolutely nowhere to win their next ten games.”
What a quote

[jacobhess]

“Your final project can be about anything you want”

[jacksonkruegersports]

Only Jon Bois could make a 54 minutes and 23 second long video about punting and have me drop everything I'm doing to watch it.

[kieranbullock]

"Ugh, 54 minutes long? Screw that, way too long for me."


*54 minutes later*


"That was terrific"

[brandongnuschke]

“Sorry Dolphins, you won. I know it’s not what you wanted.” -Every Miami victory in the 2010’s

[Kohdok]

"I'm misusing Algebra to throw a fit". Print that on a t-shirt, man.

[fallsaturn]

This Man is like the Bill Belichick of youtube. He doesn't eat, sleep, or drink. All is does is think and comes up with the greatest sports statistics known to mankind.

[mikedrop]

Omg... Did we really just get a new Chart Party... That's almost an hour long?

[gofast]

During week 1 of 2022, the Houston Texans punted with 1:01 left in overtime, at 4th and 3, on their opponent's 49, while they were tied with the opponent. According to my calculations, this results in a surrender index score of 358.06, which ranks 5th all-time in the surrender index.

[iangalt]

"I'm misusing algebra to throw a fit." That is the greatest sentence ever said. I applaud you.

[SecretBaseSBN]

1. Jon made a few errors in the making of this video, which he has kindly listed in the description, so go check that before you yell at us in the comments. Or don't and just yell at us anyways. It's YouTube. We get how it works.

2. Oh hey, it's Jon Bois

3. If you don't watch this whole video right away and in one sitting, Jon will never make another video again, he told me so

[doxazo]

When the first chart is a 3d representation of every punt of the last 18 years, you know you're in for a good one

[BritishMetric]

In the Surrender Index calculation, I found the greatest value for a punt with these characteristics:
4th and Goal at the opponent 1-yard-line, 1 second left in overtime, down by three points.

That returns a score of 1, 625, 631 points.