Our special teams are bad

[Austin85]

We need to improve , not because Grant is injured our coverage and tackling needs major improvement .

[dd]

Yes they do. Yes miller and Gauthier are out but we re losing the field position badly. On top of that, our blocking is suspect?kramdi whiffed on his block that resulted in the blocked punt . It seems our punter takes forever to get the ball out as well. Major work I needed indeed.

[The Zipp]

Sergio is great, so is Grant ...apart from those two our current performance is dismal. Personell, schemes, coaching should all be considered

[blue_or_die]

I?m not speaking for every instance but during replays I was trying to watch the coverage teams and saw that Calgary actually did a great job making their blocks. Not excusing this aspect of our game but it takes two to tango and credit where credit is due. Totally possible that Calgary just did well in this phase.

[bunker]

It's baffling to me we are so bad in this area, since it's O'Shea's area of expertise and a real point of emphasis with him. I get that we're missing Gautier and Miller, but we should not be this bad. I wonder if part of the problem is hang time on our punts. There was one Lewis return in 4th quarter where other than Exume, no bomber was within 15 yards of Lewis when he caught the ball.

[dd]

It's baffling to me we are so bad in this area, since it's O'Shea's area of expertise and a real point of emphasis with him. I get that we're missing Gautier and Miller, but we should not be this bad. I wonder if part of the problem is hang time on our punts. There was one Lewis return in 4th quarter where other than Exume, no bomber was within 15 yards of Lewis when he caught the ball.

Our punter stinks. He takes forever to get the ball out, has had at least 2 blocked this year and several others nearly blocked and he doesn?t get the hang time to allow the cover team to get down field. We need to upgrade our punter and I dare say, I felt more comfortable when Legghio was doing the punting for us!!!

[pjrocksmb]

Punting is average
Kickoffs average
Place kicking great
Coverage poor
Tackling on coverage fair
Return game with Grant excellent, without poor

[TecnoGenius]

I?m not speaking for every instance but during replays I was trying to watch the coverage teams and saw that Calgary actually did a great job making their blocks. Not excusing this aspect of our game but it takes two to tango and credit where credit is due. Totally possible that Calgary just did well in this phase.

Ya, CGY was very well coached and playing hard on ST.  They were all over our coverage guys, getting in the way, chipping just enough to let the speedy returner get by.  And very clean, I think only 1 ST blocking penalty.

But it's up to our guys to shed the blocks.  That's often and experience and muscle thing.  We don't have a ton of healthy guys right now with both.  Lots have one or the other.  That's where Miller, Hansen, Gauthier come in... are those guys waiting until the GC to get back??

The worst is giving up big returns right on the rail.  I really hate that!

[TecnoGenius]

It's baffling to me we are so bad in this area, since it's O'Shea's area of expertise and a real point of emphasis with him. I get that we're missing Gautier and Miller, but we should not be this bad. I wonder if part of the problem is hang time on our punts. There was one Lewis return in 4th quarter where other than Exume, no bomber was within 15 yards of Lewis when he caught the ball.

Only the gunners are supposed to be right near the returner when the ball arrives, so what you describe is not that unusual.

As for hang time, we're experimenting with the weird "20 different kicks" Aussie style.  Teething pains.  He's doing those line drives and weird angles on purpose to try to catch the returner off guard, maybe make him whiff, maybe get it behind him.  I find our punt game intriguing, if a bit hair-raising.  There is no "hang time" on many of his kicks.  If the ploy doesn't work then the returner can get the ball fast before coverage gets close.  If the gamble doesn't work, we can go back to a traditional Meddy-style punter next season.  But I think we're stuck with it for now, unless a good NAT P gets cut (good luck with that).

We are going to need the extra GLOB spot when Hansen is better... and Maruo is becoming ingrained in the D...

[GOLDMEMBER]

Sheehan is slow. Could be a killer in the post season especially when it gets to -10 and colder.

What heck are Hallet and Exume doing?

[bunker]

Only the gunners are supposed to be right near the returner when the ball arrives, so what you describe is not that unusual.

As for hang time, we're experimenting with the weird "20 different kicks" Aussie style.  Teething pains.  He's doing those line drives and weird angles on purpose to try to catch the returner off guard, maybe make him whiff, maybe get it behind him.  I find our punt game intriguing, if a bit hair-raising.  There is no "hang time" on many of his kicks.  If the ploy doesn't work then the returner can get the ball fast before coverage gets close.  If the gamble doesn't work, we can go back to a traditional Meddy-style punter next season.  But I think we're stuck with it for now, unless a good NAT P gets cut (good luck with that).

We are going to need the extra GLOB spot when Hansen is better... and Maruo is becoming ingrained in the D...

Not for us last night maybe, but it's unusual unusual for a team that covers punts properly.
Watch again. It's a 37 yard punt, line of scrimmage our 15, Lewis catches it at about Bomber 52, so a short punt, no way a situation where he's out kicking the coverage. When he catches it, exume is 5 yards away, Darby about 10 laterally. Kramdi, Griggs and Jackson are 20 yards or more away. I don't think a 20 yard cushion is how a punt coverage team draws it up. Hang time is only 4 seconds, which was part of the problem, but with that short a punt, there should be more bombers in the "contain" zone.
Another issue seems to be Griggs, who's got outside coverage but inexplicably punches into the middle while Lewis is turning outside. Wilson also was well blocked and got there late.
Watch Calgary's punt just before that one. They've got 4 players within 10 yards of McRae when the ball hits the ground and 7 players within 15 yards.
I wonder if we had to start holding back and sticking with our blocks longer because of the blocked punt.
In any event, when you kick from your 15 and the other team takes it back to your 30, for a 15 yard net gain, it is unusual.

[theaardvark]

Sheehan is slow. Could be a killer in the post season especially when it gets to -10 and colder.

What heck are Hallet and Exume doing?

Didn't Hallett save McCrae's bacon on that fumble?

[Jesse]

Didn't Hallett save McCrae's bacon on that fumble?

That was a no yards too, wasn't it?

[Lincoln Locomotive]

not keen on our Aussie punter.....give me the boomers with hang time that allows our cover team to converge on the returner.    His kicks are all low trajectory grounders and our cover team doesn't have enough time on most kicks.    When the returner is allowed that extra open space it's hell for tacklers.     Legghio was an OK punter but he also didn't have a lot of hang time....but his directional kicking was pretty good.    
Being as old as I am, I miss punters like Ed Ulmer who kicked the ball into the ozone.....you didn't see many big returns because the cover team had so much time to converge.
Medlock was as close to the perfect punter/kicker combination.....just not too many of these types roaming around these days!

[NewBlue]

Our punter stinks. He takes forever to get the ball out, has had at least 2 blocked this year and several others nearly blocked and he doesn?t get the hang time to allow the cover team to get down field. We need to upgrade our punter and I dare say, I felt more comfortable when Legghio was doing the punting for us!!!

I noticed this for sure the 1st couple games.  he seemed to get better after that, but then the blocked one yesterday.
He apparently has all kinds of kicks, but he needs to have an emergency quick one too.

Anyways, what did we all think about the potential for contact on that block? The defender did roll into him afterwards.