I responded to the post that said the average return was 26.85 yards. If that is false then the numbers change. As I said if that is the average we must have had a few inside the 15 because there were some long returns.
You compared the 26.85 yard return to the placement of the ball on a touchback. Those numbers have no relationship. The only way they would is if 100% of the returns started on the goal line. They do not.
While true most of Stewart’s kicks went inside the 5. I acknowledged that gave a 5 yard plus. It is clearly better to get zero return with a kick into the EZ than averaging starting around the 31.
Pretty sure that's yards after catch. So, if they catch it at the 5, that's essentially the 32 yard line. I could be wrong.
However, for every kick we stop at the 13, 18, or 22, there are kicks stopped at the 38 or 45. That's the problem. Also, it's about what those teams did with that starting position. Sometimes it hurt us, sometimes it didn't.
Roger, I have said several times the kicks generally went to the 5 so ok, the 32 vs the 25.
I think we were pretty good at stopping some kicks well short of the 25. People tend to remember the ones that end up on the 38 or 45 because there were several missed tackles.
Yes I do and I see someone has already pointed out that it’s not average starting position. And of course we had some good coverage.
To me, the inconsistency in performance on KO and punt coverage, particularly KO coverage, was problematic. I’d consider we make good strides on PK and punts, did OK with KO, but struggled a bit when GS went down, and were inconsistent on both return teams. Probably a B-/C+ overall. Solid improvement, but room to improve.
I do not think it is grief over the number, but rather how he is interpreting it and comparing it to touchback starting at the 25 yard line when they are not related in the way he is suggesting.
I have said several times Stewart’s kicks post injury we’re mostly to about the 5 yard line. I don’t have numbers, however there were only a few that seemed intentional to come down around the 10-15.
Do you mean KO coverage team? I think of KO return team as us receiving a KO, maybe I'm wrong.
I will say that yes, some aspects of special teams were significantly better this year than the previous year. My initial response in this thread didn't acknowledge very well that the coaches and team did make some pretty big improvements. The ONE place where we did not do well was KO coverage and I'm hopeful that we see some improvement in that next season.
I think you’re right, and I think if Brumfield is worth his salt, we’ll be much improved in coverage next season because it takes less practice time to maintain a skill than to develop one, so he should be able to spend more time on coverage and less time on the stuff that he already fixed.
Coverage team. Poor typing on my part.
Our coverage unit sucked. Stewart was good until he got hurt. Quality depth matters on STs