Special teams
 

Have not been all that horrid afterall.

Re: Special teams
 

Apart from the fact we appear to draw an 'Illegal Block in the Back' call whether we are kicking or returning on nearly every punting play!

That aside, not too bad at all. Which is helped massively by Thomas Morstead. His kicking distance and accuracy are unreal!

Re: Special teams
 

I respectfully disagree; this is a post I made on an older thread.

Special Teams...3 reasons from just the first half of today's Cards game.

1. Sproles punt return to NO 36 yd line; stinking penalty and we start on NO 12 yd line. 24 yards matters in a close game.
2. We punt out of bounds to AZ 33 yd line; stinking penalty and they start on AZ 43 yd line. A good team takes full advantage of boners like these.
3. We take 14-7 lead with less than 3 minutes to go in the half. Arenas takes the kickoff to NO 49 yd line. Seriously? Again, good teams take advantage of these things.

FIRE McMahon now. In the playoffs, special teams boners like these get you beat. And that was just from the first half...wonder why it was so close at half time playing an average team in the Dome? Here's your answer.

Re: Special teams
 

Oh McMahon still needs to go no doubt, but they arent half as bad as I thought they were going to be. They are by no means great, but they so far arent as big a liability as I thought they would be. A lot of that has to do with Moorestead.

Re: Special teams
 

Im in the group that wants a change at ST coach. The only reason anyone calls our ST good is because of Morstead and Hartley. A penalty on almost every return, punt or kick, is ridiculous. Our return game is below avg. Sproles is close to breaking one but its usually a team mate that stops his return by being in the way. It is one area that needs a fresh coach and has needed it for awhile now.

Re: Special teams
 

Boom. Love it. If it wasn't for the hang-time and directional kicking, we'd be super-hosed. ST are a tad better this year, as I've seen some starters out there with guys like Cadet and Reddick making plays. This year's Spec Teams would be highlighted even more of a serious liability if it weren't for this D bailing them out.

I'm just bracing myself for when the Spec Team's scheme and strategy completely negates the talent of the players. This is all McMahon, the single worst ST coordinator in the league. May have overstepped myself with "FIRE this guy" on Week 3, but I am obviously not a McMahon (the devil) fan.

Re: Special teams
 

But that does not mean they aren't a major liability. I don't get block in the back calls. I think that would be the first thing you learn after blocking & tackling.

Waaaay to many penalties. Y our special (ed) teams. :pissed:

Re: Special teams
 

Block in the back calls on special teams are symptoms of folks being out-of-position on blocking assignments plus a lack of communication. Overall blocking assignments a kick? Lack of communication? Ultimately McMahon's responsibility and to a smaller degree the Special Teams Captain. If we are clicking on offense and our D continues this way, just guess which phase of the game the enemy will attack in their game plan? My money all day, every day is win it with special teams if I was an opposing HC. It'll get exposed in a hurry every week.

Re: Special teams
 

I have peen moaning about the penalties on returns since preseason, its driving me nuts.The coverage has been better though.

Re: Special teams
 

Does peenmoaning sting at all? Perhaps some Vicksab would make it better. :)

Re: Special teams
 

Damn phone making look some STD riddled pervert.

Re: Special teams
 

Our Special teams are total crap... The Penalties give our opponents 10 yards and killing us.

Our Opponents are averaging 37.6 yards per Punt on us and that's 5th highest in the league.

They kick FGs and nothing else. There is zero discipline.

Re: Special teams
 

How many times did they punt? About 50. Think we're good. Clean up the penalties.

Re: Special teams
 

I agree with Dude, I think Saints special teams "not being horrid" is cause for dancing broccoli and Who Dat emoticons right off the bat. Face it, we are stuck with McMahon unless somebody here would like to entertain the notion of having a head coach not named Sean Payton. No way McMahon is going anywhere, unless they lose the Super Bowl 70-0 with all the scoring being because the other team ran back ten kickoffs or punts for touchdowns.

It seems to be the intentional plan this year, that McMahon's special teams will brain fart and give the other team the ball on the 40 or 50, once or twice a game, and make Rob Ryan deal with it.

Arizona are one of the best special teams units out there in terms of returning punts and kicks. Prior to the game, some people here predicted that it would be exploited and would make the game close. It ultimately didn't do the Cardinals a lot of good.

We can "peen moan" all we want in these threads, but until it does actually make a difference in a game, it's the same raggedy sloppy special teams as we've always had when we were a playoff team. Nothing new here.

Re: Special teams
 

Good teams exploit special teams blunders; AZ ain't a good team right now. Considering how much better we are than AZ, our Spec Teams idiocy kept the game tight going into halftime. If it's a playoff-caliber team, we're down a TD or 2 at half.

Wonder if you'll sing a different tune when field position or a return costs us an early exit from the playoffs? Hope not. We can only hope Ryan's D and Payton's O continues to clean up McMahon's habit of crapping the bed.

Re: Special teams
 

I have been pleasantly surprised by the kick and punt coverage, especially since Roby was such a big part of that unit and it always suffered without him. I'm not saying it's great, in fact I would say it's average and sloppy but honestly I was kind of expecting weekly disasters in this area.

Return team is terrible. It's disappointing that we have a guy like Darren Sproles as a returner and everything gets short-circuited because our blockers can't get out of their own way or stop themselves from tagging another guy in the back.

Field goals seem good. I think we generally underrate Hartley a lot. There are a ton of worse kickers in the league. Punting is good except when Morestead way outkicks his coverage, which seems to be the case often lately. But I'd rather have that problem than the opposite.

Re: Special teams
 

I'm missing something... Hartley is 7-8, Morstead is all-world, we gave up 15 yards in PR, Sproles averaged 18 in punt returns...

one long KR return and the 2-3 obligatory penalties and the sky is falling?

Re: Special teams
 

????

Re: Special teams
 

I believe that McMahon needs to go and I've said so for years.

Re: Special teams
 

FYI we have punted 11 times this season. That would be tied with the Colts @#1 for the lest amounts of punts in the league.

I didnt mention "our" punting because that is fine and our punt numbers are due to Morstead The Leg.

Returning other teams punts is where we are 29th in the league.
NFL Football Stats - NFL Team Opponent Net Yards per Successful Punt on TeamRankings.com

Sproles is averaging 7.3 yards per punt return (20th). And 23 yards per Kick Off Return (27th).
Returning Stat Leaders 2013,NFL Overall Punt & Kick Return Rankings

Special teams is all about field position. Sproles needs those guys to block.

Everyone is more than welcome to be happy with penalties and being at the bottom of the league in return yardage... I am not.

Re: Special teams
 

Bingo. Having all 3 phases of the game clicking is the difference between a "Good" team and a "Great" team. I like making the playoffs and winning divisions, but I'll never get enough Super Bowl wins.

If the O and the D are playing well, good Special Teams play is the "Kill Shot" that puts the other team away.

Re: Special teams
 

Return yardage in perspective:
--We have returned TWO kicks this year. Love or hate the 23 yard average, it is really meaningless; teams aren't going to kick to Sproles.

--Punt return average is 15th in the league. Doesn't factor in high, intentionally unreturnable punts that result in fair catches (4) or touchbacks, or times teams simply kick away from Sproles (often)

the penalties are inexcusable, but we are actually not anywhere near the bottom in returns
2013 NFL Team Returning Stats - National Football League - ESPN

I was going off Sproles stats, yours were team stats. Which are the same, the ranking was a little different because some teams have more than one returner above Sproles.

If teams are going to punt away from Sproles, or kick it out of the endzone on Sproles, why is he back there?

Wouldn't we stand to get better field position on punts if we had someone they would kick to? Or is the faith in our special teams low enough that we rather just take it where the ball lands?

What I don't see in the link you provided is where certain kicks are omitted and the stats are dubious...

Payton Manning has thrown 12 TD passes this season but Denver has only kicked off 7 times? San Diego has had 16 opponent kick offs ATT return against them in 3 games?

I am doing this on my phone so I may be missing something on the mobile version.

Re: Special teams
 

Of course you're not, and no one in their right mind is going to disagree with you...BUT the real question you need to ask is, who do you want to see coaching the Saints on Sunday morning, out of all the subset of people in the world NOT named Sean Payton???? Take your pick. The world is your oyster. So to get a change at special teams coach, who do you plug in at Head Coach?

Re: Special teams
 

Saintfan is available...

Re: Special teams
 

These stats are kick returns. You are thinking kicks. Siri always confuses the two :}

Re: Special teams
 

Payton cut ties with Gibbs when the team couldn't get over the hump. I can't see why Payton can't/won't do the same for McMahon. If McMahon's ineptitude is a major contributor to a playoff loss, you can't convince me Payton won't hire somebody else that knows what they are doing. Payton ain't scared of firing folks.

Re: Special teams
 

And here I thought giving Siri the male voice I would get better answers.

Re: Special teams
 

Sean Payton is the head coach but he doesn't strike me as the micro-manager, so I can only assume he lets his ST coach make some of his own decisions.

Re: Special teams
 

no, same results. The deeper voice version is actually just Rosie O'donnell

--how about we just agree that our return game has been average at best and that we have to eliminate PR penalties?

Re: Special teams
 

Thats fun... I mean fine.

Re: Special teams
 

McMahon and Payton are pod'nuhs...

Payton is gonna keep him until it costs him a SuperBowl Ring...

But there is no question something has to be done...