Packers Special Teams: Still Suck

by Brandon on Feb 14, 2010 11:30 PM CST in Green Bay Packers Analysis

As already noted over at Cheesehead TV, Rick Gosselin posted his year end stats for special teams and the Green Bay Packers were the 2nd worst. From the Press-Gazette:

The ranking isn't an anomaly either. The Packers finished dead last in 2005 and 2006, rebounded to tie for seventh in 2007 and then fell back to 26th in 2008, after which former coordinator Mike Stock was pushed into retirement and Slocum promoted to replace him.

If you can name a special teams player, he probably had a bad 2009 season. They all struggled. A couple areas stunk extra bad:

1. Penalties. The worst with 28 penalties, although this can almost be excused because the entire team has a problem with penalties. It's nothing unique to the special teams. This is something the entire coaching staff is going to have to work on hard this offseason.

2. Punts inside the 20 yard line. As bad as P Derrick Frost was in 2008, P Jeremy Kapinos's miserable 2009 campaign was even worse. But while Frost ripped off some memorably bad punts, Kapinos avoided any truly horrible ones and was just generally awful. He actually did OK in 2008 with 7 punts inside the 20 and only 1 touchback in 4 games, before only 15 in 2009 with 10 touchbacks. His net average of 34.1 was the worst in the NFL. He can comeback and compete for his job again in 2009, but they have to bring in some serious competition. Tim Masthay alone isn't going to cut it.

With the exception of 2007, the special teams have been awful every season since Shawn Slocum has been a Packer special teams coach, so I don't know how he's keeping his job. On the other hand, he's not on the field either missing FGs and committing penalties. Mike McCarthy has already done his coaching evaluation and only made two minor moves, so Slocum's not going anywhere.

The healthy return of Will Blackmon can only help the return game, but they need to bring in some healthy competition too. Kapinos needs competition and so does K Mason Crosby. None of this necessarily has to be done in the draft, but I wouldn't object if a punter or kick returner was drafted in April.

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I also wouldn't object to Blackmon vs. Williams vs. Nelson for full-time returner duties

Between the three of them, we may be able to find or create a guy who can quickly identify holes, hit them, and hold onto the damned ball.

Gah – from top to bottom, our ST were just terrible last year. (shudders)

"Who ever heard of the Cubs losing a game they had to have?" -Frank Chance
"If [Ruth] had [called his shot], I would have knocked him down with the next pitch." -Charlie Root

by Clutch16 on Feb 15, 2010 11:24 AM CST reply actions

Blackmon is never healthy and Williams is too valuable to the defense to throw out there full time. Nelson does ok on kick returns but I don’t think he has the agility and burst needed for punt returns.

"I agree but dont agree"

by juggernaut400 on Feb 15, 2010 2:59 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs

Regarding Punters

I think Simmons said it best in a column a couple of months ago when he asked, “Out of the entire world, the billions upon billions of people, these are the best 32 punters?”

I know it’s easy to bring the stat hammer down on Kapinos, but it was the big returns given up after the punt that really hurt this team. Some of that is on Kapinos, sure, but I thought he was worlds above people like Jeff Feagles who seemed to shank every other punt. Kapinos was #6 for return yardage, and the only player above him who also made the playoffs was Ben Graham for Arizona; part of that two is being at the bottom of the list for out of bounds punts (2 of 66), which to me falls more on coaching. If you can’t stop them, kick it out of bounds. I wish they gave an average yard that they punted from too; less than half of Kapinos punts (25/66) were inside the 20 or touch backs, which suggests to me too that we punted more frequently from deep in our end zone and it limited the inside 20 opportunities.

So, in other words, I defend Kapinos to a point. I don’t think he was given a lot of opportunity to excel, but I also don’t think he did enough with the opportunities he did get.

by Danwood on Feb 15, 2010 4:03 PM CST reply actions

It's sad, but...

…didn’t McCarthy and/or Thompson say a lot of their player pick-ups were due to Special Teams, ie the player is what they wanted for ST?

by Darrell L on Feb 15, 2010 4:35 PM CST reply actions

I too do want the ST addressed in the draft

just not in the third round. I still have nightmares of BJ Sander’s name being called.

"That's not a weird stat. Rickie is a run-scorer," Yost said. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter," Yost told reporters. "See, you guys have no concept. He's a run-scorer. So there's nothing weird about it. That's what he does."

by Hyatt on Feb 15, 2010 4:57 PM CST reply actions