Warrior General Games

I'm currently recruiting for a punter and having never built one, have the following questions:

Should I be accessing them on build or by average punt distance from the previous season?

Is there a player setting where the punter can "out kick his coverage" (kick higher vs kick longer) causing a longer punt? Could this be a cause for misleading or inflated punting averages?

Averages nice, but as you suspect not the entire story when it comes to player builds.

A few reasons why an average will be high.

1) losing team, may kicks from deep in your own territory (also the leg of steel VA)
2) Many corner triggers (a corner kick will always go further than a regular kick)

A few reasons why an average is low

1) Touch Backs. In GLB a touch back is the next best thing to a successful corner since many punts get returned. But since punt averages are net yarts punted, every touch back statically is 20 yards shorter than he really punted it.
2) If the team has a bad kicker / does not risk long field goals - if you're constantly punting 40-50 yards from the goal line it not only limits how far you can kick it, but also increases touch backs making those averages 20 yards less.

There is a slider for hang time or distance, but many here have not noticed too much of a difference. Maybe it's hard to out punt your coverage. I'm not sure.

High confidence, vision, Calm Nerves with high punting should increase corner attempts as well as lower the number of bad punts.

Then there is the X factor. Some punters are just better than others with similar stats. Not sure if it's just the law of averages, certain combinations of the build, or something hidden into the player builds

Thanks for the info

Originally posted by JohnnyP
I'm currently recruiting for a punter and having never built one, have the following questions:

Should I be accessing them on build or by average punt distance from the previous season?

Is there a player setting where the punter can "out kick his coverage" (kick higher vs kick longer) causing a longer punt? Could this be a cause for misleading or inflated punting averages?

You need to take it all under consideration. Their average punt distance can come from quite a few factors.
1. Bad team that gives up return yards. (My guy had only 3 out of 12 punts retruned for a TD, 2 by the conference leader who had 50))
2. Touchbacks/coffin corner kicks. Touchbacks take 20 yards off the punt yards remember. Also you may have a 28 yard punt, but it went out of bounds at the 5.
3. Hang time vs distance tactic. Yes the punter can out kick the coverage. If you are going up against a top return guy, the higher setting on hang time will reduce the punt distance but will also reduce the retrun yardage.
4. You play on a good team. 1 "bad" yardage punt may have your average take a nosedive but, as I said above, you may have a 28 yard punt, but it went out of bounds at the 5. My guy had 30 kicks w/ in the 20. (You can gamescout for this onfo and more)
5. Consistnacy: Look at the player from year to year. I would guess that the average should go up each year as they progress.
6. Awards: See if they have any trophies, and see where they rank in their confrence. (#1 defensive ranked punter, #2 offensive ranked, #5 ST ranked)

Any clue to how those rankings are determined? I was 5th or so in punting average, but 1st in offense and defense but 10th special team punter on the awards page.

Is there anyway to see the rankings from previous years? I have usually been high in the rankings each year although I only have a couple punting trophies.

As far as I can tell those rankings don't mean much. They skew heavily towards players who have high punt yardage due to attempts. See: http://goallineblitz.com/game/player_awards.pl?player_id=1834014

Level 11 punter who obviously was not very good getting the #1 conference D punter spot. (likely because he kicked a lot of fair catches, so no one returned any of his punts). IMHO, you should just ignore those things for punters.