The Rams punter has enjoyed a remarkable season – even by his own sky-high standards. What’s the secret to the 26-year-old’s success?

Why Johnny Hekker goes to the Pro Bowl as the most dominant punter ever

Sunday’s Pro Bowl will feature dozens of NFL players who stood out from their peers this season – but nobody was as dominant at their position as Los Angeles Rams punter Johnny Hekker.

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How dominant? The stats tell the story:

• In 2016, Hekker landed an NFL-record 51 of his punts inside the 20. No other punter even had 40 such kicks.

• He launched 98 punts this season, and only one crossed the goal line for a touchback. None of the 27 other punters with at least 50 punts had fewer than two touchbacks.

• His net average was 46.0 yards. No other punter averaged 45.0 net yards per punt, and only one had an average above 42.7.

• Opponents gained an average of 1.55 yards on returns on all of Hekker’s punts. No other punter had an opponent return average below 1.82.

It was a brilliant campaign even by the high standards of the 26-year-old Hekker, who earned his third Pro Bowl selection in five NFL seasons. Not bad for a former high school quarterback who walked on at Oregon State hoping to compete for a role under center. The coaching staff instead asked Hekker to give punting a shot, promising him a scholarship if he could win the job.

An 18-year-old Hekker spent the summer before his freshman year working with a kicking coach in Alabama. “I was terrible,” he recalled. “But I was never really satisfied and always wanted to find ways to get better.”

Better he got.

Hekker earned the punting gig with the Beavers and saw his average increase from 39.7 in 2008 to 40.1 in 2009 to 41.7 in 2010 to 44.0 in 2011. The Rams – then, of course, in St Louis – took notice and signed him as an undrafted free agent, and his average continued to rise in each of his first four NFL seasons, from 45.8 to 46.3 to 46.5 to 47.9.

Hekker’s average actually dropped this season for the first time in his nine years as a punter (by one tenth of a yard), but he more than made up for that by setting that new record for punts inside the 20.

“His rookie year, maybe five out of 10 punts he hit a really nice ball,” said John Fassel, who has served as Hekker’s special teams coordinator for each of his five NFL seasons. “Then the next year it’d be seven out of 10 punts, and then eight. And now he’s hitting nine out of 10 punts pretty darn good.”

It’s enough to cause you to wonder if Hekker still has room to improve. After all, he still had that one touchback serving as a blemish on his 2016 record. And like any great athlete, he dwelled on it.

“It was my fault,” said Hekker. “We were at the 40, and Coach Fassel asked me if we wanted to take a delay-of-game to give me more room. I said no, and I realize now that I should have taken those yards. I was pretty upset, but the world keeps turning.”

In Hekker’s defence, the tape shows he gave his gunners a chance when the ball landed just inside the five-yard line, but they couldn’t touch it down before it took a hard bounce into the end zone.

That error aside, Hekker has practically mastered the craft. When coming in to punt near midfield in the past few seasons, he’s done something like this almost every single time:

And:

And when he’s forced to go to work from deeper in his own territory, that’s OK, too. Those are the times Hekker gets to unleash. He’s had 30 60-yard punts in his career, including a personal-best 78-yarder this season against the New York Jets.

He practically kicked it the length of the field.

What differentiates Hekker from his fellow punters?According to Fassel, who has spent the majority of his 16-year coaching career running special teams units, Hekker is a rare bird in that he is the clear-cut special teams leader in Los Angeles.

“Punters are usually off to the side and kind of unknown” said Fassel. “But Johnny is the opposite of that. He’s front and center, hard-working, vocal and encouraging. There’s not many guys at his position who are like that.”

That probably stems from Hekker’s days as a quarterback and an elite varsity basketball player. And the very fact he excelled at other sports and in other positions goes to show that he’s not just some guy with a freakish leg. He’s a freakish athlete who has found a niche.

Fassel says one technical thing that makes Hekker special is “his ability as an athlete to get better faster, and to pick up new techniques and implement them into a game. He is as athletic a punter as I’ve seen – I probably shouldn’t say in the history of the NFL – but as far as punters who are athletes, he’s in the 99th percentile.”

Fassel says Hekker has also developed “three or four other special types of punts that have made him unique,” even if they can’t be deciphered by the naked eye.

Hekker explains: “It’s really just about timing [and] how the ball comes out of your hands and how it moves in the air. If it’s not moving at all – a still drop – then you’ve really got a good chance. You really can tell when you connect on a good one. It feels good coming off the foot. You don’t want to peek too early – I’m a guy who keeps my head down through the follow-through – but there are some balls where I just can’t wait to take a look and see how it’s flying.”

Unsurprisingly, he makes a nuanced and difficult task sound simple. It’s clear, though, that acquiring and improving muscle memory is the key to his success.

Hekker found a thing he’s better at doing than anyone else in the world, and then he put in the time – in Alabama, in Oregon, in St Louis and in Los Angeles.

That’s earned him plaudits from some of the most respected men in the game. Sure, Fassel spoke glowingly of him and former Rams head coach Jeff Fisher was semi-ridiculed for heaping praise on his “record-setting” punt team when there wasn’t a lot else to laud, but New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, with no skin in the game, offered up these words:

“This guy is a weapon. “I mean, he’s not a good player. He’s a weapon.”

Hekker admitted: “It’s hard to ignore. I definitely appreciate his kind words and it makes me feel good on some level, but I gotta remain humble because I’m not the whole picture here – I’m a small piece.”

That may be true – no punter is a big piece – but there’s plenty of evidence that Hekker is the biggest small piece in football. And while he never fulfilled his dream of becoming a professional quarterback, Hekker has still thrown 12 passes off fakes and broken plays in his five NFL seasons. That’s twice as many as any active punter in football. He’s completed seven of those throws and if qualified would have the highest passer rating (114.2) in NFL history.

Hekker’s leg got him here, but don’t be surprised if he gets a chance to show off that arm – and that athleticism – on Sunday in Orlando. Small piece Johnny Hekker could become a big piece at the Pro Bowl.