TSR’s Punter of the Week:
Brett Kern – Tennessee Titans

Who is he?
The 26-year-old Kern had a stellar punting career at the University of Toledo. He played a season and a half with the Broncos before being abruptly cut by Denver and then picked up by the Titans during the 2009 season. Kern’s 2012 season with the Titans has been his best ever statistically, leading to talk of a spot in the Pro Bowl. Kern is active on Twitter. He calls himself a “Jesus follower” and occasionally cites bible verses while Tweeting. Kern recently Tweeted this question to his 7300-plus followers: “Is there anything better than a couple double stuff Oreos after dinner ?!?!? #no .” Kern graduated from Grand Island HS in Western NY state in 2004. He led the MAC in punting his senior season at Toledo.

The Kern stat line vs. the Jets 12-17-12:
Ten punts. 391 yards total. 39.1 yards per. 36.4 net.

The punts in detail:
1. Kern was plenty busy on this night as two anemic offenses traded possessions at rapid rates. In all, Kern punted ten times which is about double the average for a punter in a NFL game. Kern’s first punt didn’t come until the first play of the second quarter. With the ball resting exactly on the midfield stripe, Kern stood at his own 37. Both of his legs are partially exposed an inch or two between his shortened cut-off football pants and hiked-up socks. Kern’s mechanics after catching the ball are textbook. He appears relaxed. This one was a decent pooch job fair caught by Jets return man Jeremy Kerley at his own 14. A 35-yard punt with no return. On the Titans possession before this, Tennessee kicker Rob Bironas couldn’t find his helmet briefly and entered the field late for his rushed trey attempt from 46 yards. The kick was blocked – perhaps because of the confusion created by Bironas’ lack of readiness and inability to carry out a normal on-field pre-kick routine.

2. Standing at his own one-yard line, Kern launched a good one with four minutes left in the first half and no rush/pressure from the Jets. Kerley was covered nicely and signaled fair catch at his own 40. It was a 45-yard punt with no return.

3. Under three minutes to go in the half, Kern went into pooch mode. He caught the snap at his own 35 and was unhurried as he sky’d a nice one to Kerley. Another fair catch. 44-yard punt, no return. Nicely done.

4. One more punt for Kern before halftime. Kern went a little heavy on this poocher from midfield and watched the ball land at the one and bounce into the end zone for a touchback. 25 yards on the net. It could have been a damaging play had the opponent been a more formidable threat on offense. As it turns out, this was a touchback that had no bearing on anything other than Kern’s stats.

5. Kern’s first punt of the second half was a well-executed poocher. Kerley hauled in the fair catch cleanly at his 12 despite an attempt by Titans gunner Tommie Campbell to impede the return man’s ability to haul in the ball. Campbell pushed a Jets blocker into Kerley the moment he caught it. No penalty was called. It was a 32-yard punt, no return. One observation about Kern: I noticed he spends a good deal of time in a motionless position immediately after the punt. He follows the path of the ball with his eyes and he watches the play unfold in front of him without much in the way of aggressive pursuit. This is atypical punter behavior. Consider Robert Malone’s punt a few minutes after this one. After launching his punt, Malone ran full speed in the direction of the return and pushed the ball carrier out of bounds. Malone careened into the Titans sideline and fell awkwardly to the ground. I suppose there are some football coaches who prefer that their punter steer clear of contact but I’ve always liked the punter who at least puts himself in position to be a tackler of last resort.

6. Sometimes foot strikes football in a spot that deadens acceleration of the projectile. Kern’s punt with nine minutes gone in the third quarter was a dead duck. With the Titans up 7-3 at the time, Kern punted from his end zone and simply made contact with the ball in the wrong place. You could hear the thud. The ball flew short and low. It was a thirty yarder that went out of bounds at the Titans 35. Pockets of fans booed. On the ESPN broadcast, Mike Tirico groaned at the shank. “A bad punt, in a bad game.” The Jets scored a TD on the ensuing possession. The lousy punt ultimately didn’t cost TN the game, but it could have.

7. The Jets rushed Kern heavy on his punt with twelve minutes left in the game. Somebody nearly got a hand on it but Kern got it away. 43-yard punt and another Kerley fair catch. A holding call on the kicking team shortened the field ten yards for the Jets but three subsequent incompletions by the Sanchize made it inconsequential.

8. On 4th and 16 with nine minutes to go, Kern launched a good one. He rotated the ball after fielding the snap and made good contact. Kerley juked a few times and wiggled his way up field for seven yards. The punt was 55 yards.

9. Kern came on again after another Sanchez interception and a another three and out for the Titans. The punt was solid and Kerley annoyingly went in to fair catch mode yet again. 43-yard punt, no return.

10. Kern’s final punt of the game was a total shank job. A choke. Standing deep in his own end zone with his team up four and the fourth quarter game clock just under a minute, Kern panicked at the sight of healthy Jets pressure. He rushed the punt, perhaps unnecessarily so, and struck the ball off the side of his foot. Ex-practice squader Antonio Allen of the Jets burst through up the middle and appeared to make slight contact with Kern as he crashed to the ground after the punt. No penalty was called and that was proper judgment by the stripes. Kern went down on his own. When Kern got off the ground and saw the spot, he expressed zero emotion. It was a 19 yard punt that went out of bounds. Kern in fact didn’t register a single bit of emotion up or down all night. Jets head coach Rex Ryan pumped his fist at the play given the unexpected life it gave his desperate team. Unfortunately, the Jets offense again failed to cash in. The first play from scrimmage after the shank was a Sanchez fumble after a low snap from Mangold. Game over. Tirico: “That’s the way this game should end. That’s the way this Jets season should end. Ugly! And a loss.”

The Sound of a Punt:
Mike Keith is the radio voice of the Titans. He’s held the post since the 1999 season. The Franklin, TN native attended the University of Tennessee. Keith is joined in the booth by former Titans tight end Frank Wychek. The clip below is the Keith/Wychek call on Kern’s final punt. The cut runs straight through to the game-ending Sanchez fumble.

The Punt-osis:
As you heard Keith say in the “Sound of a Punt,” Kern had put together the best season of any Titans player prior to his awful Monday night performance against the Jets. Via Twitter, Kern vowed to make adjustments to avoid a repeat. “My apologies titans fans for an off night..It almost cost is (sic) the game..No excuses just need to get fig (sic) what happened and move on !” Kern is in the second year of a four-year deal potentially worth $5.2 mil with 2.1 mil guaranteed. We’ve seen plenty of organizations grow impatient quickly when punters do what Kern did Monday night, but he’s been so consistently good in a Titans uniform, you’d expect he’ll be back in 2013 for sure. His head coach Mike Munchak offered support for Kern at his Tuesday news conference. “The last one, I think it was some pressure, or he felt some pressure, and I think he was worried about getting it out of there quicker than he had to so he didn’t get it blocked and he mis-hit it,” said Munchak.

Next week’s Punter of the Week:
Sam Koch – Baltimore Ravens

TSR was in attendance for Kern’s turn as Punter of the Week (pictured above with Jeff D in the south end zone). It was TSR’s first and only visit to a NFL game of the 2012 season.

I arrived in Nashville at mid-day Monday. New York Post football writer Mark Cannizzaro was on my flight out of Newark. His column in that morning’s newspaper had a dateline that would suggest Cannizzaro was already in Nashville. Dateline policies vary from paper to paper but purists believe a dateline should reflect the city from where the story was filed.

Jeff D. picked me up at Nashville’s clean and well-organized airport and we immediately went to lunch at Arnold’s Country Kitchen on Eighth Avenue near downtown. The cafeteria-style restaurant offers a few main dish choices and several side options. Pictures of famous country music stars cover the walls. I had the roast beef/gravy, macaroni, green beans and cornbread. It was fantastic. Our pre-game tailgate session at a remote parking lot northeast of the stadium was highlighted by fresh butcher-made bratwurst cooked on a small charcoal grill by Jim from Queens.

The temperature dropped considerably as the game went along but never became unbearable. I wore a Jets cap but never faced even minimal harassment. A guy seated behind me used an empty bottle and the vacant seat next to me as a percussion device when the Titans were on defense. The clanking noise this guy generated had a high pitch to it and was just annoying enough to elicit a plea from me to stop.

He didn’t.

The proximity of Jeff’s long-held two seats to the playing surface offers an incredible visual and sound perspective. A plumped-up Tebow entered the game on third and short during the opening Jets drive and got a first down. He also played a full series half-way through the second quarter. Tebow time sent a charge through the crowd but felt really awkward in terms of the game’s flow and the likely impact it must have on the mental state of Mark Sanchez.

Tebow’s presence is larger than life. His entry to the game feels like an intrusion rather than a contribution. It’s unfair to Sanchez and it’s disruptive to the offensive unit to alter so abruptly the march and motion. It’s also unfair to Tebow to be used so sparingly and without clear guidance or logic as the team prepared for big games down the stretch.

The quarterback position has been recklessly mishandled by the organization. In a short off-season span, the Jets recruited and failed to sign Peyton Manning, threw an unexpectedly rich extension at Sanchez to sooth his self-made insecurity and then brought in Tebow to re-shatter the fragile ego of an upper first-rounder who hasn’t panned out. Add new offensive coordinator Tony Sparano’s failure to navigate limitations of his signal-caller and this season has been one big mess on offense. Said Jon Gruden on the Monday night telecast over images of Sparano dictating instructions to Sanchez and Tebow during the game: “Every time you look at the Jets sideline, it looks like they’re solving some calculus problem. There’s some confusion or something that needs to be explained.”

After four interceptions and a fumble in the Monday night loss formally eliminating the Jets from the playoffs, Sanchez is finally getting the clipboard. The foolish extension he was given will make it tough to get rid of him completely. Slimmed-down head coach Rex Ryan is stuck with a circus that he played a large part in creating.

I flew back to New York on Tuesday by way of Washington-Dulles. It was the first time I’d ever passed through Dulles. The spread-out terminal buildings force many connecting travelers into lengthy gate-to-gate scampers but I was impressed by the newly-built portions of the facility.