Special Teams
 

You guys know we sucked pretty hard on ST at times last year. It hurt us.

Clearly the front office is signing players with the intent of correcting that problem, and I'm excited about that.

Even if we just improve to the middle of the pack on ST we're WAY ahead of the game given the fire power we have on "O" and what looks to be an improved "D", especially against the run.

This could be a really good year y'all. STs included.

It just wasn't last year... it's been like that for quite some time now. We made a conscious effort not only to improve the quality of depth on our defense, we did it with proven special teams commodities. I expect a big turn around for our coverage unit.

From Sproles to Herring, Oliver to Ingram, Washington to Roby, Prioleau to Torrence, Patrick to Wilson, among others... there is a lot of speed, experience, and athleticism to go around.

Injuries are obviously the key here. If we can avoid the injury bug this year then we'll have more players available for ST.

My question is, is McMahon finally on a hot seat of any kind??? Alot of the blame HAS to fall on his shoulders.....

McMahon is tight with Payton, they go waaaaaay back together. He is not going anywhere, but it looks like they might be finally turning up the heat on him a little bit. I think Payton has realized after looking hard at last year, that the team is definitely hurt by his friend's coaching on Special Teams, and that the situation there is a ticking time bomb that could BLOW UP at any point in the season and seriously impact the team and Payton. I mean if special teams keep laying big fat eggs on Sundays and the media and the fans suddenly turn on Coach Payton about it, that is big trouble for a head coach.

I mean look at the season last year: Hartley's blown kick against Atlanta, the chip shot at the 49ers game that nearly didn't go through, the Hartley/Carney flip flop, the total fiasco and meltdown on special teams in the Browns game, kicking off SHORT to the Seahawks which gave them great field position and LET THEM BACK IN THE GAME when we were ahead (my biggest beef of all)....the list is really long of the shortcomings on Special Teams that actually did blow certain games.... I'd even include the injury to Roby in that list of failures, which was a really sad injury but it's the kind of injury that is almost inevitably bound to happen, when your entire coaching scheme on special teams receiving, consists of Roby just running straight ahead like a crazed maniac and smacking full speed straight into a solid wall of people at the 20 yard line, on every single kickoff, every time, with no lanes or blocking whatsoever.

I think they are making moves to improve this area.

Lets see what happens during preseason!