On Tuesday and Wednesday I had One on One Punting Lessons with Jimmie Kaylor, who was the punter for Colorado State the last couple years and was also signed as a free agent this spring by the Atlanta Falcons. Jimmie was recently released because of the new 80 man roster rule.Jimmie had contacted me a couple of months ago injuring about my consulting services. However, he sustained an injury in the spring, then was signed by the Atlanta Falcons so we never had an opportunity to work together. After his release he once again called and he was now in town looking to get better.
Like all lessons, Jimmie went through his warm up routine and progression as I watched and took mental notes. I asked a lot of questions and he gave me answers.
I quickly noticed in his warm up drop drills he had the nose of the ball almost perfectly straight. He also walked straight down field. When he started to punt most his punts went down the middle or middle left.
I also noticed that he punted with a fairly low drop. Many of his hang times were in the 4.4 to 4.7 range. Not bad for most punters. However, to get my attention or to be an NFL punter I want to see some 4.9 to 5.2 hang times. During the two One on One Punting Lessons we worked on raising his drop table just a little higher. (Above Photo)
During the first lesson, Jimmie went through his warm up routine, One Steps and started hitting some open field punts. We video taped his technique and recorded get offs, distances and hang times. We progressed to directional punting and finished the first lesson with some pooch punts.
After the first lesson we went back to my office and my observations were confirmed by the eye in the sky! The camera never lies.
Jimmie walked straight down field with an inside drop causing his punts to go middle left. His drop table was low causing him to get a lot of good punts but no really big hang time punts and finally he had too many handling times in the high 1.3 to 1.4 and sometimes as high as 1.5.
My observation became crystal clear to him. Jimmy shook his head and agreed. Like most of the punters and kickers that come to me for One on One Lessons, Jimmie had never had his technique video taped and analyzed like I do it here.
Before the second lesson I designed a routine specifically to help Jimmie be a more consistent punter with better hang times. We worked a Drop Progression and One Step Drill that would emphasize the corrections Jimmie needed to make.
During the drills he hit some excellent power zone punts and he commented, "they felt so good coming off my foot, I hardly hit them." He was now punting through the ball rather than falling back. He was now using a power zone punt technique that resulted in more punts going to the right.
When he did it right, he looked great and felt great!
We also spent time working on better handling times. Jimmie had a couple of unnecessary movements that resulted in slow handling times. We worked some drills and addressed these movements. Jimmie was a quick fix and started two stepping with handling times in between 1.25 and 1.35. Much better handling times with much better punting results.
After the second lesson we once again reviewed the video and Jimmie realized exactly the changes or adjustment he needed to make to refine his punting technique.
Here is Jimmie Kaylor's testimonial about his One on One Lesson with Coach Zauner.
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