We’re kicking off our series for the all-quarter century Atlanta Teams team with punter, the most glamorous position on the roster.
This is also a fun one to start with because there are three options who are at least worth considering for the honor of the team’s best punt over the past 25 years. There’s the team’s current day punter in Bradley Pinion, a longtime and beloved punter and big hitter on special teams in Matt Bosher, and a reliable option who the team actually used as both their punter and kicker
for a short time in Michael Koenen.
Read our capsules if you need a refresher on these players, including statistics and all-time franchise history rankings in parentheses, and then vote!
Matt Bosher
The raw numbers: 489 punts (2nd), 20,120 net yards (2nd), 45.1 yards per punt (2nd), 40.4 net yards per punt (2nd), 38.9% inside 20% (2nd), 9 punts blocked (1st), 1 highlight reel tackle
The Mighty Bosh was a fixture on Falcons special teams from 2011 to 2019, and boasts the second-highest number of games played from a Falcons punter, just behind the insanely overworked John James of the 1970s. He’s also top three in every franchise punting category, which is a good thing except for the number of blocked punts, the one notable flaw in his game.
Still, Bosher has the longevity argument, the quality of resume argument, and his status as a long-time fan favorite.
He also did this, if it helps to persuade you to vote for him.
Michael Koenen
The raw numbers: 440 punts (4th), 18,501 net yards (4th), 42 yards per punt (9th), 36.9 net yards per punt (8th), 34.1% inside 20%, 6 punts blocked (1st), 4/13 on field goals
What made Koenen effective in his prime was a big leg—he once kicked a 58 yard field goal in an otherwise ill-starred turn as the team’s kicker—and quality hang time. Despite having just 50 fewer punts than Bosher, he had 343 fewer return yards against him, a testament to his ability to give his coverage teams room to catch up. He ended up doing a lot of work in a fairly short amount of time for Atlanta, given how often the team was punting early in the new century.
The problem is that the rate numbers are well behind his two competitors here, but no accounting of the best punters of this era for Atlanta is complete without him, even so.
Bradley Pinion
The raw numbers: 248 punts (9th), 10,037 net yards (8th), 46.2 yards per punt (1st), 40.5 net yards per punt (1st), 39.5% inside 20% (1st), 0 punts blocked
Pinion’s case is simple: By rate numbers, he’s the best punter in team history. The case against him is equally straightforward: He hasn’t done the job as long as Bosher or Koenen. You have to decide how much you want to weigh those factors.
Like cornerback, punter is a position that only gets noticed when something spectacularly good or terrible happens, and Pinion’s occasional ugly shanks get outsized notice. On a punt-to-punt basis, though, nobody in team history has been better at pinning opposing offenses deep in their own territory, and he’s been a hyper-reliable option for four seasons now.
