It’s not exactly easy to set records in professional sports these days. Baseball players generally have it worst, at least when it comes to counting stats—pitchers are swamped by the long-gone era when complete games were commonplace, while batters have to deal with the towering numbers posted during the steroid era in the 1990s and 2000s. Basketball lies on the other end of the spectrum, with many of its all-time marks (especially those pertaining to the relatively recent three-point shot) well within reach.
Somewhere in between lies our weirdest and messiest sport: football. Fittingly, the attainability of records here runs a wide gamut: quarterbacks and receivers have never had it easier, running backs have never had it harder, and defenders are an extremely mixed bag. Kickers also have a fairly easy time setting records these days—their job is dependent on nobody but themselves, which makes the rise of modern conditioning and a widening pool of talent critical.
As for punters? Well, nobody seems to think about punting records that much, if we’re being honest. But these marks are intriguing because, for the most part, they haven’t shifted much across the history of football. In 2021, the league high in total punting yards was 4,102 by the Texans’ Cameron Johnston. Go back sixty years and, in 1961, that figure was 3,802 by the Cardinals’ Jerry Norton. There’s been a gradual upwards trajectory—Norton’s number was a record at the time, whereas the modern-day record is an astronomical 5,209 by Dave Zastudil in 2012—but there’s much more consistency here than we’re used to within football records.
It’s reasonably possible to compare the best punters of today with those from over half a century ago. The same also goes for college football, where prominent records still belong to 1938 Johnny Pingel (total punting yards in a season) and 1994 Todd Sauerbrun (most 50-yard punts in a season). So when a player comes along and shakes up this hierarchy, there’s no huge debate to be had over what his numbers actually mean. A record is a record, more or less, and in the 2021 Mountain West, two of the most prominent were shattered.
One chase you heard about. This was San Diego State’s Matt Araiza, whose dazzling boots earned him the nickname “Punt God” as he hunted down the single-season yards-per-punt record. In the end, he finished with 51.19 yards per punt—surpassing the previous 50.98 by 2018 Braden Mann. And on a team with tepid offense and lights-out defense, his services provided the spark as SDSU surged to a 12-2 season. Amid the (minor) hubbub, another spectacular season elsewhere in the Mountain West went relatively unnoticed.
That season was that of Colorado State’s Ryan Stonehouse, and it’s even more impressive when you consider the context. While 2021 was the crown jewel of Stonehouse’s five-year career with the Rams, he’d been a spectacular punter throughout it: he averaged over 45 yards per punt in every season and racked up some 11,656 total yards (even with an abbreviated 2020 season). His final season came up just short of the previous single-season record and a step further behind the marks of Araiza and Turk, but it also served as the capstone of the career record. Stonehouse had played every one of the Rams’ 53 games across his five seasons and punted a total of 244 times in those appearances, slowly but surely piecing together a 47.77 average to launch past Sauerbrun’s mark of 46.31.
Not only did Stonehouse beat the record, though—he shattered it. The 1.46-yards-per-punt margin between his new career average and Sauerbrun’s was bigger than the gap spanning the rest of the top 25 combined. (Following Stonehouse’s career, Oklahoma’s Michael Turk has reached 150 career punts and narrowed Stonehouse’s record-setting margin to 0.84 yards per punt.) But thanks to Araiza’s own achievements, he wasn’t even named to the first team in his own conference.
There were other reasons Stonehouse’s accomplishments were overlooked and doubted. The most prominent, of course, is that Colorado State was absolutely awful throughout most of his college tenure. The first three teams he punted for were coached by Mike Bobo, and they finished 7-6, 3-9, and 4-8; then the Rams hired erstwhile Boston College .500 extraordinaire Steve Addazio, who failed to reach even that mark in his 1-3 and 3-9 seasons at the helm. All told, CSU went 18-35 during Stonehouse’s career, a staggering waste of perhaps the best punter in college football history.
Those who would dispute that title point to the main asterisk on his record: altitude. At 5,003 feet above sea level, Colorado State’s Canvas Stadium is the fourth-highest in FBS, and common conference foes like Wyoming (7,215 feet), Air Force (6,621), New Mexico (5,100), Utah State (4,710), and Nevada (4,610) also tower over most field altitudes. The unusual effects of altitude on sports are well documented—baseballs fly further at Coors Field, international soccer matches in the Andes lead to shortness of breath for visiting teams, and F1 cars hit higher speeds around the streets of Mexico City than anywhere else.
Football, unsurprisingly, is no exception: footballs fly just a bit further in thinner air, which can make a world of difference at the absolute limit of athletic ability. The longest punt in NFL history? That came in the Mile High City for a reason. The longest field goal in NFL history, until Justin Tucker surpassed it last season, occurred in Denver as well. Based on a study of the 2001 and 2002 seasons, visiting kickers from cities near sea level saw their average kickoffs soar from 62.8 yards to 70.1 yards when they visited the Broncos. Considering the chases for punting records often come down to tenths of a yard, a gap like that is more than enough reason for skepticism when a record is broken in the Rockies.
It wasn’t until this year—when, forgotten amid further Araiza excitement after the Bills drafted him in the sixth round—that Stonehouse’s legend would finally begin to grow beyond Fort Collins. But back home, they already knew just how unique the Tennessee Titans’ new unassuming punter was.
Punters are not, generally, known for being outspoken. It’s a profession more in line with being a major-league umpire than an offensive or defensive football player: do your job right and fans will almost never notice your contributions, but get it wrong and you’ll be the butt of every joke for days. The humble, self-effacing nature of the position tends to attract a certain sort of person, especially under the dimmer lights of college football. “No one’s going out and normally buying the punter’s jersey,” Penn State’s Barney Amor summarized in a recent feature for The Athletic. Those who want to be known and recognized for their brilliance rarely thrive in the role.
But Stonehouse does. At CSU, he was the stuff of legend for more reasons than just his prodigious punting: he trash-talked the Ray Guy Award on Twitter, built an outdoor kitchen, fostered rescue dogs, shared alien conspiracy theories, and generally stood out in a way that punters don’t, as a rule. He could easily have ended his college career after 2020, having put in four magnificent seasons, wrapped up that career yards-per-punt record, and likely secured himself a spot somewhere in the NFL. Many in his position, particularly other punters who don’t expect many to take note of their success, would have done so. The fact that Stonehouse took advantage of the one-off COVID-19 year of eligibility and ran it back says a great deal about the kind of person he is.
When all was said and done, it was the Titans who took a risk on Stonehouse. He earned a chance to prove himself in the preseason—but Tennessee already had Brett Kern. The league leader in yards per punt back in 2017, a three-time Pro Bowler, and a two-time All-Pro, Kern had slipped only slightly from his spot at the pinnacle of professional punting. An undrafted rookie from the Mountain West wasn’t likely to give him much trouble…right?
But the lack of altitude in Nashville didn’t slow Stonehouse down. The veteran he was facing in the competition didn’t, either. He averaged 50.2 yards per punt in the preseason, landing six of his thirteen attempts inside the twenty, and turned his one major error—a dropped snap against the Buccaneers—into a miraculous 4th and 5 conversion on the ground. Shortly before the season, the Titans made it official: the greatest punter in franchise history had been deposed.
The eyes of the nation (well, the part of the nation that cares about NFL punters, anyway) were fixed on Tennessee. That was doubly true because Araiza had, earlier in the offseason, been cut by the Bills amid sexual assault allegations1. Many of those who had extolled his excellence at SDSU were now in search of a better, more likable specialist to call attention to, and the Titans’ new starter was ready to welcome the spotlight with open arms. The recognition he had deserved and desired for so long was arriving in full force.
All that remained to be seen was how Stonehouse would actually do. Sure, his preseason was impressive, and sure, the Titans were evidently confident enough in his abilities to prefer him over a franchise legend at the position, but all the reasons to doubt his success still stood. Would he able to perform in real games? Would more bobbled snaps like the one in the preseason crop up under pressure? Would his low hangtime open the door for opposing specialists to unleash long returns?
Finally, after all the speculation, it was time to find out.
Fifty-four yards. That’s how far the first punt of Ryan Stonehouse’s regular-season NFL career traveled, though a strong return (with the aid of a missed tackle or three) made it 37 net yards. Still, it was a great start to what ended up as a superb day, a debut in which Stonehouse averaged 57 yards per punt on six boots. It was the fourth-best average ever recorded in a punter’s debut, and the second-best with at least three punts, trailing only Michael Dickson’s 59-yards-per-punt emergence in 2018.
The NFL world took notice, and continued to as Stonehouse continued to impress. The following week, he posted 55.5 yards per punt, one of the few bright spots in a 41-7 loss to the Bills. In Week 3, he reached new heights with an average of 60.3 yards per punt against the Raiders, helping to key the Titans’ first win of the season and joining the exclusive club of five rookies with 60 yards per punt in a multi-punt game. (A group that already has, by the way, a sixth member—Jordan Stout matched that performance punt-for-punt and yard-for-yard just last Sunday!)
Altogether, Stonehouse averaged over 55 yards per punt in each of his first three career games. That made him not just the first player to do that in his first three games, or in any three straight games during his rookie season…but in any three-game stretch in NFL history. You would think he’d get tired of setting records at some point, right?
But another one is now in sight. Three games down the road, Stonehouse is averaging 54.9 yards per punt for the Titans, now 4-2. The single-season record in the NFL is an ancient one, established by Washington quarterback Sammy Baugh in 1940, in a time where serving as both passer and punter (and adept safety, which he also happened to be) was par for the course. (That was the season, by the way, that ended with a 73-0 loss to the Bears in the NFL championship game.) Baugh’s mark was 51.7 yards per punt; Stonehouse has yet to have a single game that low. The season is long and nothing is set in stone yet, but his odds at creating even more history look good.
For someone who made his name in college not just by being phenomenal on the field, but by being outspoken, extroverted, and generally enthusiastic about pretty much everything, Stonehouse has been quick to cast aside credit in the NFL. He points to Kern, who was gracious enough to show him the ropes while simultaneously fighting the rookie for his career; to his family legacy, a heritage of punters at USC, Washington State, and Missouri; to the Titans, for their willingness to bet on an unproven, underestimated punter out of San Dimas. Nowadays, he spends more time on Twitter shouting out other specialists—like the Tennessee Volunteers’ Chase McGrath, who stunned Alabama with a knuckleball field goal, and his own Rams’ Jack Howell, a reigning freshman all-American—than celebrating his own triumphs.
There are more than enough, witness to his greatness, to take care of that for him now.