Common Punting Mistakes: The Drop Is Almost Always the Answer

Here is the single most useful fact in punting. The drop is the only part of the motion where the ball is not attached to anything. Every other element — steps, plant, swing, follow-through — is a movement you can feel and repeat. The drop is a release, and a release that is a few degrees off produces a shank that looks like a leg problem and is not.

Which means most punting faults are diagnosed in the wrong place. A punter who shanks does not usually have a swing issue; they have a drop issue that the swing then faithfully executes.

This guide covers the mistakes that actually cost punts, in rough order of how much damage they do — starting with the drop, moving through the operation, and ending with the strategic errors that make good punts into bad outcomes.

The Drop Mistakes

Four faults, and between them they account for the majority of bad punts at every level.

1. Tossing instead of releasing. The ball should be placed into space and left to fall, not thrown down. Any upward or downward force from the hands adds rotation and changes the timing. A good drop looks almost passive.

2. Rotating the ball on release. The most damaging error of all. If one hand leaves slightly before the other, or one applies more pressure, the ball turns in the air — and by the time your foot arrives, the surface you thought you were striking has moved. This is the direct cause of most shanks.

3. Dropping too high or too low. Too high and the ball has time to rotate and drift before contact. Too low and your leg cannot reach full extension. The window is narrower than most punters realise.

4. Inconsistent drop position. Sometimes across the body, sometimes outside the hip. The strike point then changes every punt, which is why a punter can feel like they are doing the same thing and get four different results.

A punter with an inconsistent drop is not a punter with an inconsistent leg. The leg is doing the same thing every time — to a ball that is somewhere different.

Contact and Foot Position

Once the ball arrives where it should, the second cluster of faults.

Soft ankle at contact. The ankle must be locked and the foot pointed. An ankle that gives on impact absorbs energy and produces a dead, low punt. This is the most common cause of a punt that feels well struck and goes nowhere.

Striking the wrong part of the ball. Contact should be consistent on the same part of the ball every time. Catching it too far toward the nose or too far back changes both spin and trajectory.

Contact too far out on the foot. The classic shank mechanism, usually a downstream consequence of a drop that was too far from the body.

Not following through. A shortened swing costs distance and hang, and it typically comes from a punter unconsciously decelerating to try to control direction.

Head coming up early. Looking downfield before contact pulls the whole body up and out. Genuinely tempting and genuinely costly.

Notice that two of those five are caused by the drop rather than by the foot. The drop keeps appearing because it determines what the foot is presented with.

Steps and Approach

Less dramatic than the drop, but these faults compound.

Inconsistent step length. Different approach lengths mean the ball arrives at a different point in your motion each time. Measure your steps and re-check them regularly, because drift is silent.

Rushing the operation. Punters under rush pressure tend to speed up the whole sequence, and the first casualty is the drop. Faster feet, same drop — that is the discipline.

Drifting sideways. Moving laterally during the approach changes the relationship between your body and the drop, which changes the strike point.

Poor plant foot position. The same principles as placekicking apply: your hips follow your plant, and your swing follows your hips. Our plant foot guide transfers directly.

Standing too shallow or too deep. Punt formations have a designed depth for a reason — it balances protection time against operation time. Freelancing on depth affects the whole unit.

Chasing Power

A whole category of mistake, and probably the most common mindset error in punting.

Distance is not the objective. Net yardage is. A 55-yard punt returned 25 yards is worse than a 40-yard punt fair caught, and coaches judge net.

Hang time is what coverage runs on. Your gunners need time to get downfield. A flatter, longer punt that arrives early hands the returner space and puts your coverage out of position.

Swinging harder degrades the drop. This is the mechanical reason power-chasing backfires. More effort means more body movement, and more body movement makes a clean release harder. Punters who swing at maximum effort shank more.

Distance is mostly not effort anyway. It comes from clean contact, a locked ankle, full extension and good timing. A relaxed, well-struck punt travels further than a strained one.

The Mistakes Ranked

By how much damage they do and how quickly they can be fixed.

Read the top two rows again. Both are drop faults, both are severe, and both are very common. If you fix nothing else on this page, film your drop.

Strategic Mistakes

Punts that were struck perfectly well and still produced a bad outcome.

Booming it into the end zone from the opponent’s 40. A touchback gives back a large chunk of the field position you had. Inside opponent territory the job changes entirely from distance to placement.

Punting to the middle of the field. This gives the returner the whole width to work with. Directional punting shortens the field your coverage has to defend.

Not knowing the plan. Directional? Maximum hang? Away from a dangerous returner? Ask before the game. A technically excellent punt that ignores the plan is still a mistake.

Ignoring the wind. Punts spend a long time in the air, which makes them more wind-affected than placekicks. Our wind guide covers the reads.

Treating every punt the same. A punt from your own 20 and a punt from the opponent’s 45 have different objectives. Same technique, different target.

Not communicating with coverage. Your gunners plan their release around where the ball is going. Telling them changes their job for the better.

Equipment

Under Pressure and in Bad Conditions

Where good punters and inconsistent punters separate.

Under rush pressure, speed the feet and not the drop. This is the whole skill. The operation needs to be quicker; the release needs to be identical. Punters who rush everything shank.

In wet weather, dry your hands between every rep. A wet ball slipping at release is a rotation you did not intend. Punters suffer more in the rain than placekickers do, precisely because of the drop. Our wet conditions guide covers the detail.

In wind, expect more effect than a placekick. Longer time in the air means more drift, and a lower trajectory is often the right answer even though it costs hang.

In cold, the ball feels firmer and less lively. Adjust your expectations rather than your swing.

When you have shanked one, go back to the drop. Not the swing. Shorter approach, slower, clean release. The next punt is usually fine if you fix the right thing.

Fixing Them in Order

1. Film your drop. Side on, close, slow motion. Watch for rotation and for whether the ball lands where you expected.
2. Do no-kick drop drills. Twenty a session. Release, watch it land, adjust. Cheapest fix in punting.
3. Fix your hand position. Same grip, same height, same release point, every time. Consistency before optimisation.
4. Check your ankle lock. Slow, deliberate reps focusing purely on a rigid, pointed foot.
5. Re-measure your steps. From scratch, every session. Thirty seconds.
6. Measure your hang time. Then talk to your coach about whether they want more of it or more distance.
7. Ask what the directional plan is. Before every game, not after a bad outcome.
8. Only then work on power. And expect most of the gain to come from cleaner contact rather than harder swinging.

The ordering is deliberate. Almost every punter wants to start at step eight, and almost every punter would improve faster by spending three weeks on steps one to three.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Seven Fixes, In Summary

What Each Punt Situation Actually Asks For

A punt is not one job. The objective changes substantially depending on where you are on the field, and a technically excellent punt that ignores the situation is still the wrong punt.

Look at how quickly distance stops being the priority. By the time you are punting from the opponent’s 45, extra yards are actively working against you — every one of them brings a touchback closer, and a touchback hands back a substantial chunk of the field position you already had.

This is the practical reason the distance-chasing habit is so costly. It is not merely that hang time matters more on average; it is that in several common situations, additional distance is straightforwardly the wrong outcome. Knowing which situation you are in before the snap is as much a part of punting as the drop is.

Keep Going

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