The breakout star of this football season may very well be a punter. If that sounds like some sort of backhanded compliment of a 2016 NFL season that has seen poor reviews and declining ratings, maybe it is. But it’s not intentional because, well ... have you seen Marquette King punt? The guy has legitimately made punting fun. Punting. Fun. We could be on the verge of seeing a punter’s jersey on the backs of NFL fans without a single one being purchased ironically.

The Oakland punter’s breakthrough into mainstream awareness came on Sunday in a nationally televised game against the defending Super Bowl champions when he pinned the Broncos inside the five with a third quarter boot and then did this.

Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) Marquette King pinned the Broncos inside the 5 then did this dance pic.twitter.com/fRqvQzcxn8

NFL fans and football celebratory greats of the past immediately took notice. The 28 year-old, fifth-year pro out of Fort Valley State became the latest star on a first-place Raiders team increasingly flush with them. As entertaining as it is to watch Derek Carr fit a pass into a tight window, or Amari Cooper go up high for a reception, or Khalil Mack chase down a ball carrier, or Sebastian Janikowski power the ball through the uprights, sometimes we just want to see the Raiders fail. Sometimes we just want to see Marquette King have to punt.

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Wanting to see a punter is a surprising thought to have, but King’s punting has always surprised. In his first NFL preseason game in 2012, the opposing team was sure King’s presence on the field indicated a fake punt was coming. “A black punter? It’s a fake! It’s a fake!” he says they yelled, sure he was some wide receiver or quarterback thrown into the game for a bit of trickery. But he simply booted the ball deep down the field and has continued to do so since. King is sixth in the league in punting average and eighth in net yardage and he got here not by going to punting camps or punting in high school, but by teaching himself how to punt simply because he found joy in kicking balls as hard as he could. It’s like a happy version of the Draymond Green story.

It’s that joy in his job, not his stats or his color or his odd path to the NFL, that makes King such a fun player to watch. I don’t think I’m breaking any news here: the NFL has been suffering from a severe fun deficiency. The very idea of fun has been legislated out of the game. But now we have a player not just openly enjoying himself, but doing it while punting. Punting. Punting has never been considered a celebratory act. In the realm of giving up, it’s not far behind putting a positional player in to pitch in baseball. It’s admitting defeat, admitting failure and just saying to the other team: “You stopped us so completely we’re just going to give you the ball now. Congratulations.” The appearance of a punter on the field never makes the fans cheer. Punters don’t make the highlight shows unless the failure of punting is topped by even more failure like a blocked punt or a return for a touchdown or the punter getting annihilated by a block. And punting is completely banned from the RedZone Channel. (There is a PuntZone channel, but only as a joke.) Kickers at least get credited sometimes for game-winning kicks. No one has ever been carried off the field after a game-winning, 50-yard punt because there has never been a game-winning punt. Punting is losing.

And yet King has still turned a punt into a positive by the natural joy he takes from the job. “I want kids watching the game on Sundays to look at me and say: “Hey, that dude is pretty cool. He’s got some swag. I want to be a punter, too,” King wrote in the Players’ Tribune. Most parents would take their son or daughter to a child psychologist if they expressed interest in becoming a punter – “There’s so much more to live for, Billy!” – but “cool” and “punter” in the same sentence doesn’t sound crazy coming from King. He’s breaking stereotypes: racial and punting ones.

Short of finding a referee who manages to make throwing his penalty flag 20 times a game fun and entertaining or Roger Goodell finally becoming self-aware and realizing he needs to resign immediately for the good of the game he professes to love and cherish, a happy punter might be exactly what the NFL needs right now. King might even be the athlete America needs right now. It’s too late to nominate him for president – and if we’re still planning on adhering to the Constitution, he’s too young anyway – but the entire country could use King’s mindset after this election season. It has been awful and negative and oftentimes felt hopeless. Maybe we didn’t have the candidates we wanted. Maybe we won’t have the president we wanted. Maybe we don’t have the job we want. Maybe our whole life feels like one sad punt from deep in our own territory on 4th-and-19 on a football field that has a baseball diamond on it for half the season and for a team that is trying to leave for another city. But we can still find a way to smile and have fun. We can dance. We can wear our pads to the club and dress up like a Power Ranger and kick stuffed animals down the street for unknown reasons. Things aren’t all bad. There’s good to be found even in failure. There are good punts.