Indy’s longtime punter has been the NFL’s best through six weeks.
Rigoberto Sanchez is in the midst of a career-best season. His seventh season as the Indianapolis Colts’ punter is off to a blazing start.
Playing one of the most underappreciated positions in the league often results in a lack of acknowledgment of one’s accomplishments, though Sanchez’s efforts through six games more than warrant praises being sung.
Rigoberto Sanchez is flipping the field at an alarmingly efficient rate. He’s arguably been one of Indy’s most impressive players so far this season.
Punter Praise™️ because Rigoberto Sanchez has been a field-flipping freak this season.
Sanchez is T-1st among all Punters with 17 Punts inside the opponent’s 20-yard line & 5th in Net Yards per Punt (44.0 yds). His 70.8% In20 rate is far & away the best in the NFL. #Colts pic.twitter.com/WyCZ2S1knK
— Noah Compton (@nerlens_) October 14, 2024
Sanchez is fresh off a career year in 2023, a season that followed a season-ending injury, where he notched his best season average of Net Yards per Punt (42.8 yards) and total touchbacks with zero. Fast-forward to 2024, and Sanchez is not only besting some of these numbers but is on pace to shatter them.
He already has two touchbacks this year, but his greatness has been showcased via Net Yardage and Punts downed inside the opponent’s 20-yard line.
Sanchez is currently T-1st among all NFL punters with 17 punts downed inside the 20, a number that has him on pace for just under 50 such punts (48.16). For example, and to explain just how dominant he’s been in this area, Sanchez’s previous career-high of punts downed inside the 20 is 28, a statistic that came on the heels of 84 punts whereas he’s on pace for just 68 total punts this season.
If his season were to continue playing out the way it has, his absurd 70.8% inside the 20 rate would be good for a career-high by 27.9%. Not to mention his current 44.0 Net Yards per Punt average, which is good for 5th in the NFL, would be a career-high by over a yard (42.8 yards).
The beginning of the 2020s was a cruel page-turn for Sanchez as he had surgery in 2020 to remove a tumor, and although he missed just two games that year, his season-ending torn Achilles injury in training camp of 2022 brought questions as to whether or not he’d ever be the same guy again.
The good news for both Rigoberto Sanchez and the Indianapolis Colts is that he’s not been the same guy since, he’s been even better. His ability to flip the field this season has been an ideal complement for the rest of the team, as he has constantly put the defense in a position to succeed by pinning opposing offenses deep in their own territory more times than not.
