Week 3 Special Teams Thread

[Barry from MS]

Originally Posted by Mardigras9

Cadet just take a knee and give it to Brees at the 20 every time, I'm good with that.

You know, I might just be good with calling a fair catch on all punts & taking a knee on every kickoff...we can't f--- that up. But hidden yardage in our favor helps our offense, which helps our defense, both of which prevents me from screaming at the TV and scaring the neighbors into calling the sheriff's department. Returning kicks gives us a couple of free plays a game to isolate our most explosive player (Cooks) and give him the opportunity to change the game with great field position or a TD.

What scares the crap out of me is our tendency of 1-2 incredibly dumb plays on special teams per game. It's encouraging that Patterson didn't break a game-changer last week, which Hagan nailed with his take on that aspect. But we freakin' missed a PAT. Blocked, shanked....irrelevant. An added bonus is that I cannot recall in the past half decade if we have ever stopped a 4th down fake kick. 31 other teams know this. And I can't recall in recent memory when special teams have won us a game (ATL--MNF 2006?), but I can certainly pinpoint when that unit last helped lose one for us (@SEA 2013 Playoffs).