In the National Football League, a disproportionate, and increasing, number of punters punt with their left leg, where punting is the position in play that receives and kicks the ball once it leaves the line of scrimmage. At the end of the 2017 NFL season, 10 out of the league's 32 punters were left-footed, up from four out of 31 (not counting dual-footed punter Chris Hanson, who left the league in 2009) at the beginning of the millennium; in contrast, placekickers were almost exclusively right-footed. The only apparent advantage to punting with the left foot is that, because it is not as common, return specialists are not as experienced handling the ball spinning in the opposite direction.