Arizona Cardinals: 5 players who need to improve
By Scott Allen
Oct 18, 2015; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Arizona Cardinals punter Drew Butler (2) punts the ball to the Pittsburgh Steelers during the third quarter at Heinz Field. The Steelers won 25-13. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
Drew Butler
When I looked at the statistics the other day I was surprised to find Butler at the bottom of the list of punters as far as yards-per-punt was concerned. He was dead last in average of punters who had at least 23 punts or more in the NFL this season.
While some of that can be attributed to field position and the Cards lack of seeing some drives stalled just before field goal range, a lot of it can just be attributed to poor punting. He hasn’t been consistently bad but he hasn’t been consistently good either.
The Cardinals are going to face some tough competition over the last eight weeks and they can’t afford to lose the field position battle, especially against teams like the Seattle Seahawks, Cincinnati Bengals, and Green Bay Packers. Not all of Butler’s production has been bad though.
One thing he is good at is placing the opponents inside the 20-yard line. He’s right in the middle of the pack in the NFL in terms of that. He just needs to be more consistent and needs to get hang time to allow his special teams time to get down the field to cover the punts.
Next: Starting to pick it up