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Not to be overly anal, but the question should be rephrased to say, "When does the down end?"
Among others
Rule 4 Section 2 ART. 2 . . . The ball becomes dead and the down is ended:
a. When a runner goes out of bounds, is held so his forward progress is stopped or allows any part of his person other than hand or foot to touch the ground.
And for the purposes of your question the punter is still considered to be a runner.
So did the punter ever have possession with a part of the body other than a foot or hand touching the ground? If they did then the ball becomes dead and the down is over. If not, well you got yourself an inadvertant whistle.
So it all comes down to a judgement call on possession and the timing of a knee. If it was a bang-bang play, well those happen. From the play you described it sounds like an indavertant whistle, but on the field sometimes things look different.
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