Vikings Insider: With Hester on horizon, Kluwe must toe the line

The punter faced a week of criticism after kicking to Reggie Bush but said there's a trade-off -- giving up field position -- to kicking out of bounds.

By JUDD ZULGAD, Star Tribune

Last update: October 12, 2008 - 7:30 AM

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The assignment sounded so simple it seemed easy to understand why Brad Childress' blood pressure was about to go through the roof of the Louisiana Superdome on Monday night.

The Vikings coach twice instructed Chris Kluwe to punt the ball out of bounds in order to avoid returns by the Saints' Reggie Bush. Twice it appeared Kluwe ignored those orders, and on the second occasion it led to a 64-yard touchdown return. It was Bush's second such touchdown of the night and nearly cost the Vikings a game they rallied to win 30-27.

As Childress and the normally mild-mannered Kluwe exchanged words on the sideline, Kluwe recalled one thing his coach said that can be printed in a newspaper. "You're a professional kicker, I expect it to be out of bounds."

Kluwe isn't just a professional kicker, he's a very well paid one. The Vikings made sure of that last season when they signed him to a six-year, $8.3 million extension that included a $1.7 million signing bonus and made him one of the 10 highest-paid punters in the NFL.

So how on earth can someone getting that much money to punt a football not manage to get it out of bounds? First off let's make this clear: Kluwe was not being insubordinate in his failure to follow through on Childress' instructions. But what he was trying to accomplish was the punter's equivalent of walking a tight-rope.

Putting the ball out of bounds isn't the issue. Kluwe is more than capable of following through on that task and has done it before. But getting distance on the ball and also having it land outside the field of play can be extremely tricky.

"I think a lot of people don't realize that when you're trying to kick it out of bounds you're trying to kick a football to a very specific point like 55 yards away," Kluwe said. "You've got quarterbacks that have trouble throwing the ball 55 yards away. To kick it there it takes a little bit of luck to get it where you want it to go."

It's a point special teams coordinator Paul Ferraro understands.

"It's not easy," he said. "If it was easy, when you look at the National Football League and net punting, everybody would punt the ball 40, 45 yards out of bounds every single time, not have any kind of return and lead the league in net punting."

This should be a non-issue today in the Vikings game against Detroit. The Lions are 19th in the league in punt return average, and Mike Furrey (9-yard average on four returns) isn't in the same league as Bush (29-yard average) when it comes to return ability.

If anything, the Vikings' struggling coverage units can get some work trying to stop the Lions.

A week from today will be another story. The Vikings will face Chicago's Devin Hester, who has been second in the NFL in punt return average the past two seasons (12.8 in '06 and 15.5 in '07) and has seven touchdowns in that time. Two of those have come against the Vikings and both were at Soldier Field -- the site of next Sunday's game.

Hester is averaging only 5.4 yards on 11 punt returns this season, but Kluwe said it's "a fairly safe assumption to make" that he will be asked to kick out of bounds against the Bears.

After seeing four punters brought to Winter Park for tryouts last week, Kluwe will put the ball 15 rows deep in the stands if he has to. The question is how far will it travel? The wind that often whips through Soldier Field isn't going to make it any easier.

Kluwe said that during his conversations this past week with Childress and Ferraro, he made it clear that the trade-off for eliminating Hester could be outstanding field position for the Bears.

Childress will be hard-pressed to get in Kluwe's face if this happens.

"The main thing is that when we really do focus on kicking it out of bounds there's the chance that there's going to be those 15-yard, 20-yard punts that just go straight out," Kluwe said. "That's one of the tough parts. You try to make it clear that 'OK, you want it out of bounds then it's going to go out of bounds.' But there are going to be downsides to it because otherwise everyone would be doing it. We talked it out a little bit, and hopefully we're on the same page with that."

Judd Zulgad • jzulgad@startribune.com