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Editor's note: This is the 18th installment in Bleacher Report's NFL 1000 for the 2013 season. This signature series runs through April 24, with NFL Draft Lead Writer Matt Miller ranking the best players at every position. You can read more about the series in this introductory article. See the NFL 1000 page for more rankings.

How do you grade and evaluate a punter? It's largely statistical.

When looking at the best punters in the game, our team focused on things like punting depth, hang time, punts downed inside the 20-yard line and punts kicked out of bounds. But who did it best?

That’s what the NFL 1000 aims to identify. Throw out the narratives and dig into the film. Then we’ll see who is the best.

The B/R 1000 metric is based on scouting each player and grading the key criteria for each position. The criteria are weighted according to importance on a 100-point scale.

Potential is not taken into consideration, nor are career accomplishments.

Punters are judged on power (50 points) and control (50) and all of the technique, athletic ability and football intelligence needed to play the position.

In the case of ties, our team asked, "Which player would I rather have on my team?" and set the rankings accordingly.

Subjective? Yes. But ties are no fun.

Each player was scouted by me and a team of experienced evaluators with these key criteria in mind. The following scouting reports and grades are the work of months of film study from our team.

All statistics from Pro Football Focus (subscription required). Players' heights, weights and seasons from NFL.com.