What makes Michael Dickson, NFL’s first rookie Pro Bowl punter in 33 years, so good
What would Michael Dickson have said if you told him when he left his native Australia and Aussie Rules Football to sign with the University of Texas that he’d be in the Pro Bowl three years later?
“I probably wouldn’t have known what the Pro Bowl was back then,” Dickson said.
“Back then” was all the way back in...2015.
Yes, only three years into competitive football, Dickson is now the best in the world at what he does. This week Seattle’s fifth-round draft choice that has paid off more handsomely and immediately than any Seahawk imagined became the NFL’s first rookie punter selected to the Pro Bowl in 33 years.
Dickson was on the phone with his cousin when he found out. The NFL sent him a direct message on his Twitter social-media account late Tuesday afternoon.
“I don’t have cable or anything, so I wasn’t watching (the Pro Bowl selection show) on TV,” the 22-year-old bachelor said. “They just sent me a message saying congrats and that’s how I found out. I was pumped.
“I was just on the phone with my cousin and we were just like in shock, kind of just laughing and cracking up, having fun.”
It’s easy to think Dickson is, um, eccentric.
Look at how he became something of a national phenomenon from the game Oct. 28 at Detroit.
Seattle led 28-14 when Carroll told Dickson to run out of the end zone for an intentional safety on fourth down with 2:18 left in the game. The coaches decided Dickson would take the safety to keep Seattle up by two touchdowns late. They preferred that over risking a blocked punt and Lions touchdown or Detroit getting prime field position to score one, since Dickson was lined up to punt along the back line of the end zone.
But the rookie ignored Carroll’s and Schneider’s instructions. And common sense. He took off running. He freelanced around right end.
Carroll’s reaction as Dickson took off: “A few” expletives, the coach said.
The expletives turned to superlatives as Dickson ran free on fourth and 8. He gained 9 yards, to the Seahawks 12-yard line. Dickson’s audacious first down allowed the Seahawks’ offense to run out all but the final 6 seconds of the team’s fourth victory in five games.
After the bold--stupid?--run teammates nicknamed Dickson “Big Balls.”
And now “Big Balls” is in the Pro Bowl.
It’s easy to assume Dickson is just supernaturally talented booming a football off his foot, because he is. The first punter or kicker drafted in the Pete Carroll-John Schneider leadership era has justified the trade and choice. And then some.
The Rams’ Dale Hatcher in 1985 was the last rookie punter to make the Pro Bowl before Dickson got DM’d by the NFL on Tuesday. Dickson is Seattle’s first Pro Bowl punter since Rick Tuten in 1994.
He was the NFC’s special teams player of the month for November after 16 punts averaged 53.0 yards, with a net average of 47.4 yards. Both were league bests. He currently leads the NFL in punt average (48.9) and net average (44.2) for this season.
None of those numbers measure the directional punter he does, with pinpoint placement. Multiple punts inside the opponents’ 5-yard line this season have turned in a 90-degree angle after one bounce and gone out of bounds before reaching the end zone for a touchback. It’s as if Dickson is controlling the bounce and ball with a joystick.
Last weekend in the rain and win in Santa Clara against the 49ers, Dickson dropped consecutive punts onto the San Francisco 1- then 2-yard line. The ball just stopped there. It was as if he was dropping water balloons from window ledge, not punting an irregularly shaped ball 50 yards to a spot on the wet grass exactly where he and the Seahawks wanted it.
No wonder he won the Ray Guy Award last season as the best punter in college football and was the MVP of Texas’ bowl win over Missouri for how many of his punts pinned Mizzou back against its goal line in a low-scoring game. No wonder he became only the third punter to leave school before his college playing eligibility expired to enter the NFL then get drafted (Clemson’s Bradley Pinion did it in 2015 when San Francisco drafted him, and Clemson’s Chris Gardocki got drafted by Chicago in 1991).
And no wonder Seattle released its longest-tenured Seahawk, the hugely popular veteran Jon Ryan, this summer to give Dickson the job from day one of his first pro season.
But as fabulously talented and even audacious as Dickson is, he works fiendishly as his skill.
This was Dickson on Wednesday afternoon, 45 minutes before practice, while all his other teammates were eating lunch or getting treatment or hanging out in the locker room:
Dickson was punting so much and working so hard in practices the first half of this season, Seahawks special-teams coach Brian Schneider felt compelled to govern him with a more structured, systematic approach to punting between games.
It’s worked once-every-33-years wonders.
“Having a coach like Schneider, he’s just made me feel free out there,” Dickson said, “and that’s something that you really need as a specialist. He’s had a massive impact on me, for sure.”
As has Dickson, on the Seahawks and specifically their defense for advantages in field position from his punts. Coordinator Ken Norton Jr. said Wednesday the defensive guys marvel at his booming balls in flight from the sideline, knowing he is making their jobs easier with each tick of hang time and each punt that’s nearly impossible for opponents to return.
The Seahawks had high expectations for Dickson. After all, they traded up to draft a punter..
Yet Carroll says “Big Balls” has exceeded those expectations.
“Yeah, he really has. I couldn’t have imagined that he could be so consistent throughout the season in his rookie year,” Carroll said.
“He had a great game with the weather (last week at San Francisco with) the wind and a little bit of rain last week, too, turf and all that. I just couldn’t have imagined he could be that consistently good.
“We’re thrilled about the pick and thrilled about having that guy on our team. He’s got a great attitude about it. He’s handled everything well. Really proud of him.”
