Punting is a subtle art and often an underappreciated facet of football. We've seen the emergence of some fairly fun punters in recent years, although we lost one when former Colts punter Pat McAfee walked away to become a media member. Fortunately McAfee is really good at this media thing and has decided to put on a clinic explaining some of the nuances of punting.

For instance, Rams punter Johnny Hekker, who is also a pretty good passer and who once got name-checked by Bill Belichick, pulled off a move in the middle of the Rams-Colts game that McAfee noticed. And it was probably a move few others noticed: Hekker kicked the ball SIDEWAYS. 

McAfee actually broke the whole thing down on a Twitter video, which you can watch here (NSFW language alert). 

He was most enthused by Hekker dropping the ball with the ends perpendicular to his foot rather than parallel, and explained that doing so allowed Hekker to spin the ball to the right. The only danger? You can completely egg the kick if you don't do it right.

"So Johnny Hekker is a monster. Very good punter -- probably the best punter in the game right now. He dropped this, he dropped this ball sideways to try and make it spin right," McAfee explained. "I've never seen anyone have the balls to do this in a game, because if you miss this it's going like 7 yards. So he drops this thing -- you see this thing? It is completely sideways. He's trying to hit it in a chopper style so it will bounce right."

Here's the kick in question:

video-johnny-hekker-punting-sideways-pat-mcafee-twitter-video.png
via Pat McAfee/Twitter

The added bonus here? McAfee also judges the celebration from Hekker (McAfee is uniquely qualified thanks to his excellent celebrations) and hopes to get something awesome, waits for it, waits for it ... and then gets a "standard Caucasian high five."