AteUp
02-01-2008, 01:10 PM
Reason #6: Idiot Punter:mad:
http://cbs.sportsline.com/nfl/story/10611531/1
Pats punter with little to do also has little to say
http://images.sportsline.com/u/photos/football/nfl/img10611561.jpg
http://images.sportsline.com/images/football/nfl/players/60x80/146329.jpg
With the way the Pats score, Chris Hanson doesn't punt much
Jan. 31, 2008
By Clark Judge
PHOENIX -- When the Giants' Michael Strahan earlier this week said everyone here wanted to be Tom Brady, he erred. I didn't. I wanted to be Chris Hanson.
Until I sat down with him.
Hanson is New England's punter, which means he gets paid for doing a lot of spectating. Five times this season he punted once, including a playoff game against Jacksonville, and I don't know about you, but that seems like a pretty good gig to me.
Apparently, it doesn't to Hanson, who turned positively prickly when likened to the Maytag repairman.
"You know what? I'm not going to answer any of those questions," he snapped. "This is a team sport, and I'm here to do a job. And my job is to punt the ball and put us in the best possible field position we can get into."
Swell. But that doesn't make him different than other punters in this league. This does: He punted 44 times this season, 61 fewer than San Francisco's David Lee.
So what's not to like?
"Next question," Hanson said.
There isn't one. Common sense says Hanson should be the happiest guy on the planet. He's punting for the world's best football team and holding for extra points, which means he does a lot more holding than he does kicking.
Let's see, part-time punter. Full-time holder. Yeah, I like the idea of that.
What I don't like is the idea of talking it over with Hanson, because there is nothing to talk over with this guy. Punters and kickers typically are among the best interviews in the business, but that group just got cut in half with New England.
Hanson is absolutely, positively the worst interview I found this week.
He seems annoyed, bitter and downright uninterested, and he picked a bad week to go into the jar. But maybe it's just who Hanson is. The Florida Times-Union sent a reporter to Foxborough to talk to him before the Jags-Patriots playoff game, and Hanson snubbed him.
Someone who covered the Jaguars later told me Hanson has a reputation for thin skin, and thanks for the warning. But it's one thing to bristle at criticism; it's another to ignore the facts.
And the facts are that Hanson is the least active punter in the NFL.
So was Maury Buford, who punted eight times in six games during the 1982 season in San Diego, earning him the nickname -- you guessed it -- "Maytag." Buford not only was comfortable with it, he relished it -- and for good reason: He didn't have to do much of anything.
But when he did he was good at it, moving on to kick for the Chicago Bears at Super Bowl XX. Hanson is good at his job, too, but he's so seldom called, it seems logical to ask what it's like to have one of the best jobs in America.
"I just stick with the same routine each week," he said.
Over and out, Chris. This isn't the Pentagon Papers, for crying out loud. It's not Spygate, either. And nobody ever mentioned anything about Hanson getting the ax, if you know what I mean.
When he was with the Jaguars in 2003, he was injured when he took a swing with an ax at a stump coach Jack Del Rio left in the middle of the locker room. After the team stumbled to an 0-3 start, Del Rio put the ax and stump there to illustrate his mantra of "Keep choppin' wood."
Each day players would take a swing, with splinters covering the locker room, and that worked until Hanson showed up.
When he took a whack, he missed the tree and hit his right leg -- inflicting a huge gash. He was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery, and he missed the rest of the season.
I can see not wanting to relive that moment, but he wasn't asked to.
Look, Brady this week had to survive a bogus marriage proposal and endless questions about his injured right ankle, and coach Bill Belichick was asked to relive years he probably would like to forget in Cleveland. Yet each kept his cool and seemed to enjoy himself.
Imagine.
So what's Hanson's problem? Only he can answer, and you can ask. Maybe he thought reporters were trying to make fun of him, I don't know. What I do know is that that wasn't the intention, and it still isn't.
What we were trying to do was have a conversation, and Hanson wasn't interested. He even dodged a big-picture question, like trying to explain why there isn't a punter in the Hall of Fame.
It took Buffalo's Brian Moorman, one of the best in the game, five minutes to complete his answer. It didn't take Hanson five seconds.
"Haven't thought about it," he said.
I have, and Strahan was right.
http://cbs.sportsline.com/nfl/story/10611531/1
Pats punter with little to do also has little to say
http://images.sportsline.com/u/photos/football/nfl/img10611561.jpg
http://images.sportsline.com/images/football/nfl/players/60x80/146329.jpg
With the way the Pats score, Chris Hanson doesn't punt much
Jan. 31, 2008
By Clark Judge
PHOENIX -- When the Giants' Michael Strahan earlier this week said everyone here wanted to be Tom Brady, he erred. I didn't. I wanted to be Chris Hanson.
Until I sat down with him.
Hanson is New England's punter, which means he gets paid for doing a lot of spectating. Five times this season he punted once, including a playoff game against Jacksonville, and I don't know about you, but that seems like a pretty good gig to me.
Apparently, it doesn't to Hanson, who turned positively prickly when likened to the Maytag repairman.
"You know what? I'm not going to answer any of those questions," he snapped. "This is a team sport, and I'm here to do a job. And my job is to punt the ball and put us in the best possible field position we can get into."
Swell. But that doesn't make him different than other punters in this league. This does: He punted 44 times this season, 61 fewer than San Francisco's David Lee.
So what's not to like?
"Next question," Hanson said.
There isn't one. Common sense says Hanson should be the happiest guy on the planet. He's punting for the world's best football team and holding for extra points, which means he does a lot more holding than he does kicking.
Let's see, part-time punter. Full-time holder. Yeah, I like the idea of that.
What I don't like is the idea of talking it over with Hanson, because there is nothing to talk over with this guy. Punters and kickers typically are among the best interviews in the business, but that group just got cut in half with New England.
Hanson is absolutely, positively the worst interview I found this week.
He seems annoyed, bitter and downright uninterested, and he picked a bad week to go into the jar. But maybe it's just who Hanson is. The Florida Times-Union sent a reporter to Foxborough to talk to him before the Jags-Patriots playoff game, and Hanson snubbed him.
Someone who covered the Jaguars later told me Hanson has a reputation for thin skin, and thanks for the warning. But it's one thing to bristle at criticism; it's another to ignore the facts.
And the facts are that Hanson is the least active punter in the NFL.
So was Maury Buford, who punted eight times in six games during the 1982 season in San Diego, earning him the nickname -- you guessed it -- "Maytag." Buford not only was comfortable with it, he relished it -- and for good reason: He didn't have to do much of anything.
But when he did he was good at it, moving on to kick for the Chicago Bears at Super Bowl XX. Hanson is good at his job, too, but he's so seldom called, it seems logical to ask what it's like to have one of the best jobs in America.
"I just stick with the same routine each week," he said.
Over and out, Chris. This isn't the Pentagon Papers, for crying out loud. It's not Spygate, either. And nobody ever mentioned anything about Hanson getting the ax, if you know what I mean.
When he was with the Jaguars in 2003, he was injured when he took a swing with an ax at a stump coach Jack Del Rio left in the middle of the locker room. After the team stumbled to an 0-3 start, Del Rio put the ax and stump there to illustrate his mantra of "Keep choppin' wood."
Each day players would take a swing, with splinters covering the locker room, and that worked until Hanson showed up.
When he took a whack, he missed the tree and hit his right leg -- inflicting a huge gash. He was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery, and he missed the rest of the season.
I can see not wanting to relive that moment, but he wasn't asked to.
Look, Brady this week had to survive a bogus marriage proposal and endless questions about his injured right ankle, and coach Bill Belichick was asked to relive years he probably would like to forget in Cleveland. Yet each kept his cool and seemed to enjoy himself.
Imagine.
So what's Hanson's problem? Only he can answer, and you can ask. Maybe he thought reporters were trying to make fun of him, I don't know. What I do know is that that wasn't the intention, and it still isn't.
What we were trying to do was have a conversation, and Hanson wasn't interested. He even dodged a big-picture question, like trying to explain why there isn't a punter in the Hall of Fame.
It took Buffalo's Brian Moorman, one of the best in the game, five minutes to complete his answer. It didn't take Hanson five seconds.
"Haven't thought about it," he said.
I have, and Strahan was right.