CHARLOTTE — If you watch only one leg this NFL season, make it Todd Sauerbrun’s.
The Panthers’ veteran punter has emerged as a hang-time specialist — and possibly the team’s MVP through seven games.
“I’m enjoying myself,” said Sauerbrun, a free-agent signed off the Chiefs’ roster last April. “I love the town, I love the climate and I love the team. I’d really like to spend the rest of my career here.”
That’s welcome news to his teammates, who watched him launch a team-record 11 punts in Sunday’s 13-12 loss to the New York Jets. He entered the game as the NFC’s leading punter with a 46.2 yards-per-kick average and had placed 15 balls inside the opponent’s 20-yard line.
“Yeah, that’s great,” said Sauerbrun, who once crashed a 66-yard field goal attempt off the left upright as a Long Island high school sensation. “But it’s not just me. All those guys up front, they’re making me look better than I really am.”
Oh yeah? It was Sauerbrun who blasted punts of 56, 57 and 63 yards against the Jets. And it was Sauerbrun who dropped four more balls inside the 20.
And it was the same Sauerbrun who wrote his name into the team record book last weekend when he drilled an incredible 72-yard punt at Washington.
“I’ll take some of the credit for that,” he smiled modestly. “But I gotta give some to the special teams guys, too. They’re the ones running down the field and getting the ball. They’ve been great for me all year.”
As for bad news, there hasn’t been much for the seven-year vet out of West Virginia. Not until yesterday, when he had a punt blocked for the first time in his pro career, ending a streak of 442 attempts without one.
“I guess it had to happen sometime,” he said. “I just wish it wasn’t today.”
It came with 1:46 remaining in the first quarter and helped the Jets take a 7-6 lead. On fourth-and-long from the Carolina 20, Sauerbrun received a perfect snap from Jason Kyle and was immediately mugged by New York rookie Jamie Henderson, who took an open lane into the backfield.
“He was there before I even hit the ball,” Sauerbrun explained. “I don’t know if he wasn’t blocked or what happened, but man, he was right there waiting for me to hit it. That’s how bad that one was. He got me clean. It was a jailbreak.”
Another of the inmates — Jets’ safety Chris Hayes — collected the ball on the 7-yard line and bounced untouched into the end zone.
“I knew it was a big play when it happened,” said Henderson. “When I reached my block point, I just took it off his foot. It wasn’t the play of the game, but it was big.”
Almost as big as Sauerbrun’s contribution has been to the reeling Panthers.
“It’s tough because we’re losing these games in the last minute,” he said. “We’ve got to fix that. All I can do is keeping doing my job.”
It’s a job that Sauerbrun, through seven games, has done remarkably well.
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