Special Teams Coach?
- Thread starter dualthreat
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Agreed - to a degree. I wanted to see the KO, KR, & P teams do well. I didn't want to see the PR and placekicking teams struggle.As fans with opinions, we pretty much all see what WE want to see.
I was referring to the polar fans "we suck" vs "everything is just ducky". Most of the times it's inbetween there somewhere.
In between. So like "we suck a ducky"?I was referring to the polar fans "we suck" vs "everything is just ducky". Most of the times it's inbetween there somewhere.
what was wrong with our PR and PK? I feel like that one moment in the Iowa game is really clouding the judgement. For PR it’s pretty difficult to judge when the coaches strategy and direction is to fair catch 90% of everything. For PK I’d say we were right in the middle of the pack, hardly “abysmal”.
Hardly uneducated. There's good reason you're attacked on 90% of your posts.
Why are you quoting me as saying "abysmal" when I never said that. In my estimation there is a lot of green between struggling and abysmal.
We didn't return punts and two of the very, very few times we did we turned the ball over. Do you not remember the bowl game? Even if we never turned it over, if we had fair caught it every single time that still would have been struggling. Whether that was on the players, the coaches or a combo because the coaches saw the players couldn't perform, a 0 yard return average would be struggling. They returned a grand total of 10 punts in a 13 game season. I'm not sure if the Iowa game fiasco counted as a return but either way they ended up turning the ball over on about 20% of their return attempts.
As far as PK goes their average 17-23 (.739) wasn't horrible (although still 8th in a 10 team league) however they got to the point where they simply wouldn't attempt any longer kicks because they couldn't be counted on to make them. They also went 49-51 on PATs which was only better than Kansas. Struggling.
Yep. ST directly contributed to Iowa loss. ST directly contributed to putting us in the hole vs ND. And most of the year, we didn't even try to return a punt. Not even try.
I won't say ST was terrible, but it is hard to imagine anyone thinking that ST was one of our strengths or even good.
I check all those boxes but you still seem to prioritize time to argue with me frequently.
This is for @VeloClone too. The original comment that kicked this all off (by some other poster, not either of you) was that our special teams was “abysmal” and the source was their eye test. When the reality is we were probably about average when going by the numbers. No one is saying we were good.
prime example of how one segment of the fan base is a hyperbolic, over-exaggerated, everything sucks we always suck we will always suck.
While the other side is out there saying “we’re not good but we were average, it’s not as bad as you are making it out to be”.
the crazy side then turns that in to “well if you don’t think we’re terrible, then you think we are the best, look at all of these stats and stuff that prove you wrong!”
it’s ******** and then of course you have people that come in and say “you’re both wrong” when in reality one side was right, the side that said our special teams was average.
For those saying our Special Teams were average.... By metrics yes. I agree. What about strategy in game time situations? Out punt return game was awful. God Awful, and literally lost us 1 game and contributed to significant holes in other games (ND). In addition, I honestly feel that fair catching 95% of punts prevents our team from being able to actually put together a real return when we need to as they are so uncomfortable work it. That's on coaching.
In regards to punt return coverage, i think we do well. For Kick return coverage we do ok.....but we have too many kick out of bounds and sometimes our coaches decide not to respect very talented return teams and get absolutely torched like against K-St.
FGs, Assalley did great last year. Punter though..... Was not very good and left us in some terrible positions.
So.. Overall very average special teams where mistakes literally cost us some games. That is why we complain on here about special teams. When someone says quote "Win in the margins" we have to win special teams as it's the biggest 'margin'. With all that said, how many games do you feel our special teams units as a whole outperformed our opponents special teams units?
In regards to punt return coverage, i think we do well. For Kick return coverage we do ok.....but we have too many kick out of bounds and sometimes our coaches decide not to respect very talented return teams and get absolutely torched like against K-St.
FGs, Assalley did great last year. Punter though..... Was not very good and left us in some terrible positions.
So.. Overall very average special teams where mistakes literally cost us some games. That is why we complain on here about special teams. When someone says quote "Win in the margins" we have to win special teams as it's the biggest 'margin'. With all that said, how many games do you feel our special teams units as a whole outperformed our opponents special teams units?
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Doesn't help that we are used to having exceptional special teams as a whole. We don't call ourselves punter U for no reason.
ST sealed our fate in one loss and majorly attributed to three others. Completely unacceptable. These metric touting idiots are literally the same people making every excuse for Prohm. Low IQ individuals
More background from ESPN (embedded in much longer article https://www.espn.com/blog/new-engla...son-shares-players-view-of-critical-cba-talks) on hire by the Pats of our former special teams coach
Patriots turn to "kicking whisperer" in Houston: The Patriots are adding University of Alabama special-teams analyst Joe Houston to their coaching staff, Bruce Feldman of The Athletic reported Friday, which continues the well-established pipeline between Belichick and Saban. When I learned more about Houston's background -- he was a former kicker at USC and a 2018 article in the Des Moines Register referred to him as the "kicking whisperer" -- it was easy to see how Belichick would value his perspective. Veteran kicker Stephen Gostkowski is coming off left hip surgery and is entering the final year of his contract, so the Patriots -- just as they were in 2006 when they drafted Gostkowski to replace Adam Vinatieri -- are naturally going to keep their eyes open for his eventual heir apparent.
Patriots turn to "kicking whisperer" in Houston: The Patriots are adding University of Alabama special-teams analyst Joe Houston to their coaching staff, Bruce Feldman of The Athletic reported Friday, which continues the well-established pipeline between Belichick and Saban. When I learned more about Houston's background -- he was a former kicker at USC and a 2018 article in the Des Moines Register referred to him as the "kicking whisperer" -- it was easy to see how Belichick would value his perspective. Veteran kicker Stephen Gostkowski is coming off left hip surgery and is entering the final year of his contract, so the Patriots -- just as they were in 2006 when they drafted Gostkowski to replace Adam Vinatieri -- are naturally going to keep their eyes open for his eventual heir apparent.
By definition 8th in a 10 team league in FGs and 9th in a 10 team league on PAT kicks is not average. Especially when the distance kicks were so bad that they decided to essentially stop even attempting them. I think the STs as a whole were average: The punt, KO, and KR teams were pretty good; the PK teams drug it down to an overall "average".
Regardless, if the OP said 'abysmal', I didn't so don't lump me in on that. Just because we both apparently disagree with your view of it doesn't mean that the OP and I have the same view on it.
