Tag: Johnny Hekker

Johnny Hekker ‘flattens’ Dolphins’ Cameron Goode with headbutt

Cameron Goode with some bad acting after a headbutt by Johnny Hekker

Johnny Hekker has a powerful leg. The Carolina Panthers’ punter also has a headbutt that would make the late Bobo Brazil proud.

Watch as he knocks over the Miami Dolphins’ Cameron Goode, who is 6-foot-3 and 245 pounds.

Then again, in the NBA,Goode would have been flagged for flopping.

Goode and Miami got the best of Hekker and the Panthers on the day.

As for Bobo Brazil:

Johnny Hekker raising funds for Maui with his punts

Panthers P Johnny Hekker is using his talents to provide critical support to the rebuilding of Maui. Here’s how you can help:

Carolina Panthers punter Johnny Hekker is using his powers for good.

On Thursday, the 12th-year veteran established a pledge to raise critical support towards the rebuilding of Maui. A series of devastating wildfires broke out in the major Hawaiian island in early August, killing over 100 people and burning over 2,000 acres of land.

In association with the Lonomai Foundation and the Rebuilding Maui Relief Fund, Hekker will pledge $1,000 for every punt he pins inside the 20-yard line this season. The four-time All-Pro, who led the NFL in that very category last season (39), sent a touching message to the Hawaiian people a few weeks back.

“I’ve vacationed in Lahaina a few times,” he said on Aug. 16. “And so, as someone who’s witnessed the natural beauty of the islands, we’re taken aback by the loss of the wildfires there and the people of the Hawaiian islands deserve a lot of aid immediately and we hope to be a part of that.”

For more information on how to help, visit Hekker’s “Punts for Maui” fundraiser by clicking here.

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Johnny Hekker to Hawaiians amidst deadly wildfires: We love you

Panthers P Johnny Hekker sent a touching message to the citizens of Hawaii, who are currently enduring the country’s deadliest wildfires in over a century.

Carolina Panthers punter Johnny Hekker used the last of his media availability on Wednesday to send a sincere and loving message to the state of Hawaii.

The 12th-year veteran and four-time First-team All-Pro was nearing the end of his presser this afternoon when he was asked a few hypotheticals about the roster’s emergency options. As far as the backup to longtime long snapper JJ Jansen, Hekker believes it’s definitely linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill.

“I think, right now, Kamu is workin’ on it,” Hekker said. “He’s got some real talent. Great blocker, too. Great athlete down the field. So, yeah, Kamu’s the man.”

Hekker then quickly transitioned into speaking about the ongoing wildfires in Maui, a situation that’s particularly close to the heart of his teammate—who’s a Honolulu native.

“Also, piggybacking off Kamu, guy from Hawaii—I just wanna send our thoughts and prayers to people in Maui,” he added. “I’ve vacationed in Lahaina a few times. And so, as someone who’s witnessed the natural beauty of the islands, we’re taken aback by the loss of the wildfires there and the people of the Hawaiian islands deserve a lot of aid immediately and we hope to be a part of that. I think Kamu’s got some wheels on the ground, things we’re gonna do from an organizational standpoint. He’s workin’ with Ken Winston and a few other guys to get something movin’.”

Grugier-Hill arrived at Bank of America Stadium for this past Saturday’s preseason opener wearing a shirt that read “Pray For Maui.”

The wildfires, which began last week, have become the country’s deadliest in more than a century. On Tuesday, Hawaii Governor Josh Green confirmed the death toll from the tragedy now sits at 101 people.

Hekker concluded his message with this:

“To the people of Hawaii—we love you, we’re thinking about you and wishing you all the best.”

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4 most egregiously underrated Panthers in ‘Madden NFL 24’

Excuse us, EA Sports. We’d like to speak with your manager about some of these Madden ratings.

This past week, EA Sports unveiled the player ratings for its upcoming title “Madden NFL 24.” And, uh, we’re not really feeling some of the grades for the Carolina Panthers.

Here are the team’s four most egregiously underrated players:

Johnny Hekker calls Madden’s long snapper ratings ‘ridiculous’

Panthers P Johnny Hekker wants the folks over at EA Sports to know that long snappers are people, too. #SaveTheSnappers

With the NFL currently ablaze under the burning topic of the depressed running back market, Carolina Panthers punter Johnny Hekker hit Twitter on Friday to take up for another overlooked position. The 12th-year veteran and four-time First-team All-Pro simply wasn’t having it with EA Sports, who weren’t too kind to long snappers in their ratings for “Madden NFL 24.”

Sure, long snappers aren’t exactly the most important players on the field. But Hekker’s got a point.

For one, they don’t even have their own designation on the video game’s official website. Instead of being listed as “LS,” since—ya know—they’re long snappers, they’re categorized as tight ends.

EA.com

And that 36 rating for JJ Jansen! My goodness!

Apparently, the developers over at EA are unaware of the Iron Man-like durability of Jansen—who just broke the franchise record for most games played. They probably don’t even know about his dual-threat skills as a director either.

Hekker’s right. Save the snappers!

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Panthers’ Johnny Hekker ranked 3rd-best punter in NFL

Johnny Hekker was recently ranked as the NFL’s third-best punter heading into the 2023 season.

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Not only is Johnny Hekker one of the best tweeters in the NFL, but it just so happens that he’s also kinda good at the football thing.

CBS Sports writer John Breech just published his rankings of the league’s very best punters. Coming in at No. 3 is the 12th-year veteran, who has put in a pretty prolific 11 years of punting:

Whenever there’s a conversation about the best punters in the NFL, Johnny Hekker’s name almost always comes up, which makes sense, because he’s one of the best punters in the NFL. Since his rookie year in 2012, Hekker has been an absolute weapon and during the early part of his career (2012-16), he was arguably the only weapon on his team and that’s mostly because he played for a Rams team that went 31-48-1 during that five-year span.

If we widen that span from 2012 to 2018, it also saw a load of honors for the 33-year-old. Hekker racked up four First-team All-Pro nods, a pair of Second-team All-Pro nods and four Pro Bowl selections over those seven campaigns.

Heck, he even had a Pro Bowl-worthy 2022—where he finished with the third-highest net average (44.1 yards) in the league. Breech adds:

A big reason why he had such a high net average is because he excelled at forcing his opponent to call for a fair catch. Hekker forced 31 fair catches last season, which was the second-highest number in the NFL. Coverage teams love when they see a fair catch, because it means less work for them.

Hekker’s net punting average was also high because he didn’t allow very many returns. Of his 81 punts in 2021, only 27 of them were returned, which means 54 of them were either downed, went out of bounds or ended with a fair-catch.

Hekker has also mastered the art of pinning his opponents deep in their own territory. Hekker put 48.1% of his punts inside the 20 last season, which was the second-best percentage in the NFL (From a pure numbers standpoint, he actually led the NFL in punts inside the 20 with a total of 39).

Finishing above Hekker on the list were Kansas City’s Tommy Townsend at No. 2 and Seattle’s Michael Dickson at No. 1.

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Panthers P Johnny Hekker jokes about Twitter’s new reading limits

If you’re reading this, you’re too late to save a post against your viewing limit. So you might as well see what Panthers P Johnny Hekker tweeted about Twitter on Saturday.

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WARNING: The following post contains one (1) tweet that may or may not count against your daily reading limit.

On Saturday, Twitter’s executive chairman and chief technology officer Elon Musk—in a supposed effort to combat data scraping and system manipulation—issued “temporary” reading limits on his site’s users. The first implementation of the policy limited verified users to viewing 6,000 tweets per day, unverified users to 600 tweets per day and new unverified users to 300 tweets per day.

Then, as has been the case with numerous changes under Musk, the goalposts moved. The rate limits were upped to 8,000 for verified users, 800 for unverified users and 400 for new unverified users later that afternoon and—by the evening—adjusted again to a 10,000-1,000-500 mark.

Whether this is an earnest effort to fix the issue or another misguided ploy to get folks to fork over eight bucks a month, Carolina Panthers Johnny Hekker poked some fun at the hectic day on the increasingly hellish app:

This is not the first time a Panther has been rubbed the wrong way by Musk’s Twitter. Just ask defensive tackle Shy Tuttle if he’s paid for validation yet.

So, for whichever limit you’re currently up against, tweet and read wisely, friends.

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Panthers P Johnny Hekker: ‘Players aren’t guessing’ with new coaching staff

Johnny Hekker on Panthers’ new coaching staff: Players aren’t guessing, ‘Does this coach really know what he’s talkin’ about and does he really have my best interests in mind?’

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Did another Carolina Panthers player just throw another thinly-veiled shot at former head coach Matt Rhule? Well, it sure sounds like it.

A few weeks ago, it was tight end Tommy Tremble, who stated that this spring is the first time he’s felt like he and the team have been “coached up.” And on Wednesday, it was punter Johnny Hekker, who said the following about new head coach Frank Reich and his staff during his interview on 104.9 Fox Sports Upstate’s Game On with John Ellis:

“There’s no guessing going on,” he stated. “You know the information that you’re getting is vetted, tested, coming from reliable sources. I mean, really generational coaching lines have started with some of the coaches on our staff, and there are some that are up-and-comers from other coaching trees that are on staff, too.

“Coach Reich has been an incredible leader thus far and just a real clear communicator of what he expects from us, what he wants from his coaching staff, how he wants us to collaborate and, really, approach this season of growth together. He realizes—just like any good team or organization or company—in order for you to become a success, everyone has to be communicating clearly, openly and honestly.”

Reich helped bring an all-star supporting cast with him to Charlotte. The impressive group includes assistant head coach Duce Staley, offensive coordinator Thomas Brown, defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero and assistants Jim Caldwell and Dom Capers—all of whom either have head-coaching experience or are expected to be in serious consideration for it in 2024.

And that’s something the Panthers really didn’t have from 2020 to 2022. Hekker continued:

“So I think that, really no matter what way you look at it, players aren’t guessing, ‘Does this coach really know what he’s talkin’ about and does he really have my best interests in mind?'”

Hmmm . . .

Anyway, Hekker hopped on with Ellis, in part, to raise awareness for the Prisma Health’s Children’s Hospital #WeCare Campaign. For more information on the campaign, click here.

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Panthers P Johnny Hekker bids funny farewell to kickoffs after new NFL rule

Panthers P Johnny Hekker was one of many players who poked fun at the NFL’s new kickoff rule on Tuesday.

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The NFL may have just kicked off on kickoffs, as team owners approved a rather drastic proposal on Tuesday morning.

Under the new rule, fair catches declared on kickoff returns between the goal line and 24-yard line will result in a spot at the returning team’s own 25-yard line. The league, in their ongoing attempts to decrease the amount of high-impact injuries on such plays, will implement the move as a one-year trial beginning this season.

While this change is a sensible step in favor of player safety, said players and special teams coaches have overwhelmingly been in opposition to it. One of those players is Carolina Panthers punter Johnny Hekker, who bid the kickoff a funny farewell later that afternoon.

Being that he’s assigned exclusively to punt duties, Hekker won’t be affected by the new rule. The only kickoff the four-time First-team All-Pro and four-time Pro Bowler has attempted in the last three seasons came on an onside try against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 15 of the 2022 campaign.

Nonetheless, this’ll be a considerable and interesting adjustment to the special teams scene.

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