Pats Special Teams Discussion

tims4wins

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Jul 15, 2005
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Hingham, MA
Through two weeks, the Pats are #30 in the Football Outsiders rankings. 1-3 on field goals, though both misses were fairly long. Both kick coverage and kick returns have been an issue. Bailey has, as he was last year, been great.

This team seems likely to play a lot of close games. If they continue to lose at special teams, it will cost them. I don't know how the Seattle game would have played out had Folk made the 51 yard FG, but they ended up losing by 5 while having the ball on the goal line. So it didn't help.
 

IdiotKicker

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Nov 21, 2005
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Folk is going to be a league-average guy to slightly below-average, and he’s getting paid like that. He’ll make 80% of his kicks, isn’t going to have any/many ”WOW” moments, and any street free agent at this point is likely either someone similar, or a rookie with upside who could also perform significantly worse under the pressure of the NFL. I don’t think there’s much room for improvement this year unless Rohrwasser starts doing some big things while on the PS, but he’s as much of a question mark as anyone they’d bring in on a rookie deal who isn’t currently on a team.

I’m less concerned about the coverage teams, as they’ll figure it out, but losing Joe Judge probably is going to be a bit of an adjustment, as Cam Achord has only a few years of experience in the NFL in total, and it’s his first year in a coordinator position. So I expect a bit of a learning curve the next 4-6 weeks.

So yeah, I think FG/XP is going to be meh, their coverage units should improve as the year goes on, and I am interested to see if Dugger works his way into the return rotation, or if they want to keep him ramping up his workload on D and if that takes him out of the equation there. I could see this being a slightly above-average group in the aggregate, but they probably won’t be top of charts like they have been historically.
 

scottyno

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Dec 7, 2008
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Special teams on both sides of the ball also lost Nate Ebner who's been one of the better special teams players on both sides of the ball for awhile when healthy.
 

Granite Sox

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Feb 6, 2003
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Chung, Bolden, Brandon King, and Ebner have all been ST stalwarts in recent years. Obviously, none are with the team this year. Replacing > 1/3 of kick/punt coverage and return squads will take a while to settle in, I think.
 

Saints Rest

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Chung, Bolden, Brandon King, and Ebner have all been ST stalwarts in recent years. Obviously, none are with the team this year. Replacing > 1/3 of kick/punt coverage and return squads will take a while to settle in, I think.
That's a bit over-stating it.
2019 ST Snaps:
  • Chung -- 19 (4%)
  • Ebner -- 318 (70%)
  • King -- 0 (0%)
  • Bolden -- 321 (71%)
PS: I did not know that King is on the Pats' PUP list.
 

Phil Plantier

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Mar 7, 2002
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This is a much better jacket than Godcheaux's. The tailor did a nice job of matching the pattern at the shoulders (a tough thing for many patterns). However, Reynolds demonstrates the risks of wearing a t-shirt with a jacket.

Also, does no one teach the Broadcast News "tuck your jacket under your butt" trick anymore?
 

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
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My main question for ST is who returns kicks?
I think Gunner turned a corner last year so he might be the leader in the clubhouse to do so. (it was as though his PR success made him a better KO returner.)
But relatedly, I'm curious about the team's KO return philosophy. It seemed that last year, they were willing to take the risk of starting a drive on the 20 or so (not the 25) for the reward of a big return. After awhile, it just didn't seem like the returner's "bad choice" to bring out every kick from 5-yards deep in the endzone, but instead the team's overall approach.
 

DourDoerr

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I think Gunner turned a corner last year so he might be the leader in the clubhouse to do so. (it was as though his PR success made him a better KO returner.)
But relatedly, I'm curious about the team's KO return philosophy. It seemed that last year, they were willing to take the risk of starting a drive on the 20 or so (not the 25) for the reward of a big return. After awhile, it just didn't seem like the returner's "bad choice" to bring out every kick from 5-yards deep in the endzone, but instead the team's overall approach.
It was interesting with Gunner. He wasn't doing a thing on returns except getting tackled almost immediately and then a light went on overnight. He figured out that quick olé move and then got upfield asap and from there his slipperiness kicked in. It literally happened on one play for the first time and he hasn't looked back. Probably a convergence of confidence and the game slowing down. Luckily the staff must have been seeing this earlier in practice because he was struggling out there for a while.