Good ol' Len. Also of note to me was that the punters who he cited - Jones for the Rams, Lee for the Niners and Lechler for the Raiders - are all working in conjunction with particularly putrid offenses. Higher gross averages? I'd expect it, given that they'd probably be doing more punting from deep in their own territory, where the emphasis is on trying to boom one as far as possible, and less from around the half, where it is more important to get a high, positional kick away and avoid any return. I don't have the information on average punting position at my fingertips, but I suspect that this may be a factor as well as the obvious weather adjustments which come to mind.

Yeah, when Vinatieri misses from 25 the end of all times is near, or just normal statistical distribution - ah first -

are these individual kicker #'s (DVOA?) available anywhere?

My subjective impression is that punters have been better at getting the ball to land at the 5 yard line and bounce vertically (or backwards) instead of forward. Perhaps that nose-down drop that commentators talk about is having an effect.

If that's true (or somewhat true), and if a team has a punter who's particularly good at it, I wonder how much effect that would have on the optimal strategy on 4th downs between, say, midfield and the opponent's 35. Generally, I'm cursing the coach for being an 8 year old girl and punting on 4th & 3 from the 38, but more and more often it seems as if the ball winds up at the 3 yard line, and I have to concede that it worked out this time.

Again, though, this is all just my subjective impression. I could be way off base.

#1 nice observation. Also helps their net, as even those great mistake punts from the 50 that result in touchbacks look good on gross, but shitty on net. Kicking from your own 10, both gross and net should look better. (Of course, the likelihood of more TD returns is higher, I'd assume, with a shorter field to cover for the returner. NO? Maybe once a returner has gone 40 yards, nobody can catch him anyway, whether he's got 10 more yards for a TD or 50....)

To add to Bobman's point, punts from your side of the 50 that are returned for TDs hurt your net average less than punts returned for TDs from their side.

This may help to explain why the Lions' punt rating is only bad (any chance we can get Chuck Priefer back from retirement?) and why the Colts' punt rating is abysmal.