While special teams appeared to make little impact on Sunday’s nail-biter of a win against the pesky Dolphins, Ryan Allen’s struggles throughout the day had great significance in the field position battle. Miami’s average starting field position after Allen’s punts was the Miami 17, which, on paper, seems to indicate that Allen was able to flip the field successfully on several occasions.
However, Allen left a ton of “hidden yardage” on the field, meaning that the Dolphins mediocre field position could have easily been worse if Allen had been able to place his punts with better accuracy. None of his four punts landed inside the Miami 14 yard line, despite the fact that not a single one was from deep in Patriot territory. In fact, the deepest Allen was forced to punt from was the NE 41. He punted from the MIA 47, MIA 44, NE 41, and the NE 46, meaning that Allen had a relatively easy chance to back the Dolphins up to their own goal line, and failed to do so each time.
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