Special effects

Just for kicks, a look at the best and worst coverage units

In my rankings column I offered a teaser on a weakness of my top-ranked team, the Broncos. Here it is, which you've probably guessed already. The kicking game.

Punter Tom Rouen was cut this week after 10 years with the Broncos. He had the second-worst net average (31.7 yards) of all the league's punters, thanks mainly to low hang time, which is surprising because you should be able to hang them higher in Denver's thin air. Even more interesting is the decline of Jason Elam as a kickoff man.

His field goal percentage is slightly down (71 percent as opposed to a lifetime average of 79), but the biggest problem is his kickoffs. They usually end up somewhere around the 10-yard line, with very poor hang time, which puts too much strain on the coverage unit. Special teams coaches would like their kickoff men to get them up in the air for 4.0 seconds or better. Against New England Sunday Elam had five kickoffs. Only one of them was better than 3.5, and now that becomes a major concern.

You wonder how someone can kick 55-yard field goals, as Elam can, but still struggle on his kickoffs, simply because a 55-yard kick would only carry to the 15-yard line from the kickoff point. A kickoff leg has to provide an explosion. Accuracy is secondary. And at 32, Elam simply can't explode 'em off the tee anymore.

"That's what happens as kickers get older," says a Broncos coach who doesn't want his name used because it's not nice to say anything negative about one of your own players. "They can still kick field goals but they lose their kickoff leg. Young guys are better at that. It's a problem throughout the league. Some teams carry two kickers, one for field goals, one strictly for kickoffs, so you have to compute the yardage it costs you and ask yourself, which is more important, the yardage or having an extra guy taking up a roster spot?"

The discussion got me thinking about special teams in general. Which are the best NFL clubs at special teams? And the worst? Naturally, I have my own statistical method of computing this area of the game, and it might be a bit simplistic for everyone's tastes, but it has served me through the years. Add average punt return and average kickoff return yards to reach a total figure, and then subtract the same total reached by your opponents.

Well, I did it for every team in the league, which, of course, could translate into a monumental chart. And would you like to see it? Well, you can't. Someone whose opinion I respect ... OK, it's the opinion of Jimmy, the guardian of the e-mail entry gate ... told me that I'd put everyone to sleep with a such a gigantic opus, so why don't I just list the top few and bottom few? Done. Who says I don't take suggestions?

THE TOP FOUR

1) Jets, plus 17.4 -- Not hard to figure out why. Two great return men in Chad Morton, who won the Buffalo game with two long kickoff TDs, and Santana Moss, who broke a punt return for a score against Cleveland. Plus one of the league's best special teams coaches in Mike Westhoff.

2) Saints, plus 12.9 -- Again, the returns did it, only this time one man is responsible, Michael Lewis, with his long punt runback and kickoff return against the Redskins.

3) Seahawks, plus 12.4 -- Good kickoff and punt coverage units, the latter allowing a measly 5.0 yards per. Wide receiver Alex Bannister and linebacker Tim Terry are the stickouts.

4) Colts, plus 9.4 -- Best punt coverage team in the league (3.3 average), with DB Cliff Crosby and LB Sam Sword the key guys.

THE WORST FOUR

32) Bengals, minus 13.3 -- Punt returns have done them in. Their average is a league-worst 3.0 yards. The good news is that they've only returned eight all season (for 24 yards, total). "Teams seldom have to punt to us," one Bengals coach said, "so we don't get much practice at it." Peter Warrick was an average-booster at 3.5 yards but he lost his job after a disastrous fumble, so it's now done by committee. In case you're wondering, the record for fewest punt returns in a season is 12 by Baltimore in 1981 and San Diego in 1982. Cincy has an outside shot at that one, but the record for fewest total yards, 27 by St. Louis in 1965 (14 games) will be tougher to break.

31) Eagles, minus 12.7 -- Worst punt coverage team in the NFL, with a 22.2 average. Washington's Jacquez Green broke a 90-yarder against them. Jacksonville's Bobby Shaw nailed them for 69.

30) Packers, minus 10.6 -- At 32 Darrien Gordon, who led the NFC in punt return average last season and twice led the entire NFL, has been banged up. He's been averaging 4.7, and the team average overall is a measly 4.4 yards.

29) Redskins, minus 8.5 -- Well, the Skins were the team Michael Lewis picked to show his return magic to, and that was enough to kill their coverage averages.

Here's an amazing thing I'm seeing more often than I've ever seen it before. The defensive end is lined up in normal position against the OT, outside shoulder or whatever. The tackle turns inside to help the guy next to him double-team the DT and the DE is left unblocked. Huh? Absolutely makes no sense.

On one play Philly ran near the Tampa Bay goal line, both Eagles tackles turned inside, leaving Bucs DEs Simeon Rice and Ellis Wyms clear, unimpeded shots at Donovan McNabb. Which they gratefully took, and the only question left was a statistical one. Which one would get credit for the sack?

The Rams lost a tackle for the season on a play like that. Raiders game. Right tackle John St. Clair didn't bother to pick up his man, LB Tavian Smith, who was lined up as a rush end. Actually St. Clair didn't pick up anybody. He turned inside, changed his mind and assumed a pass-blocking stance -- against air. The unblocked Smith came in like an express train, knocked quarterback Marc Bulger three yards back, right into the extended leg of his left tackle, Grant Williams. Broken leg, torn ligaments in the ankle. Out for the year.

What the hell is going on? It happens so often that it can't be mere screw-ups. There's some kind of weird design at work, I just know it.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again," says Mike Giddings, the director of Pro Scout, a personalized scouting service hired by a number of NFL teams. "The league is suffering from overcoaching. Instead of just doing what makes sense, the linemen are doing all that thinking before the snap, all that pointing ... 'I've got him, no you get him.' And they wind up leaving a guy unblocked."

"The defense will either line up in blitz position or show a blitz," says former Raiders TE Todd Christensen, now a broadcaster, and a person with whom I enjoy sharing ideas. "The offensive line will call slide protection to the loaded side. Everyone slides one man down. So what they wind up with on the other side is either an unblocked man, if there's no one in the backfield to pick him up, or a situation such as a Warrick Dunn blocking a Michael Strahan, which just ain't gonna work."

"The book says, when the defense is showing blitz and they're matching six against your five blockers, you turn the wide guy loose," says Denver's special offensive line consultant, Alex Gibbs, the best teacher of O-line play in the business. "But in that scenario you've got to have a back over there, or a tight end, or somebody, to at least chip on him. Then your quarterback has to go to a three-step drop and get the ball to his hot read, against the blitz, right away. But if you just leave a defensive end unblocked, and you're working from an empty backfield, sooner or later you're gonna get your quarterback killed.

"We just won't do it. We won't have our tackles turning inside. We've got a rule -- big on big -- which means that our inside guy, our guard, has to take their big guy, the defensive tackle. If they're sending blitzers up the middle, then it's one-on-two. The guard, if he has no help from the center, who might have a man over him, just has to make himself big and take on two guys, or at least create a traffic jam and slow them down.

"This situation of the unblocked defensive end is growing every day. It's become a basic topic of conversation. One problem is that even if your quarterback can get the ball off to his hot read, and even if it's a three-step drop, he's still gonna get hit -- if he's under center and has to turn his back to set up. In a shotgun, he has more time. All these protection schemes look good in practice, but the quarterback isn't getting hit in practice."

Most courageous performance I've seen this year -- Detroit fullback Cory Schlesinger, playing with a chipped bone in his back, constantly nailing Bears' MLB Brian Urlacher on his blocks, as the Lions ran for 192 yards in their three-point victory. ... I used to get annoyed with NFL officiating, until I watched some college games. Talk about bad calls. And this is something the Flaming Redhead wanted to know -- "When they show the close-up shots of college referees, how come they look like such zombies?" ...

Coaches amaze me. The Jets are killing the Browns' secondary, which is minus three starters, in the first half. Then after the intermission they pull in their horns and won't throw anything but safe, underneath stuff, and they blow the game. And how about defensive coach Ted Cottrell explaining that he cut back on his pass rush because the field was so chewed up. Huh? ...

Here's my take on Giants' tight end Jeremy Shockey supposedly getting the Eagles all fired up by stating on the radio, three days before the game, that their secondary was "lucky," and "not that good." What was the result? Did they shut him down? No. He still caught six balls for 69 yards, playing on one leg. Did they go out of their way to take shots at him? No. He took the shots. The only ones who took it big were the Philly fans, and they get mad just looking at each other. ...

Was there anything worse looking on the football field than those orange bedroom slipper things Denver kick returner Scottie Montgomery wore against the Patriots? ... Most consistent sideline shot -- Steve Spurrier registering absolute disgust when his QB calls timeout because the play clock is running down. Seems to happen every game. ... This is a given. Every week I will see something that I've never seen before. Last Sunday it was the 49ers getting called for delay of game on the opening kickoff. ...

Every time K.C.'s Dante Hall returns a kick he looks like he's going to go all the way. ... You know those graphics they always run on TV about how many yards a team has run for going left side, right side, center? Just once I'd like to see someone with sense address the more meaningful category of how many runs have gone weak side as opposed to strong. ... Best blocking tight ends I've seen are Washington's Walter Rasby and Minnesota's Jimmy Kleinsasser. The Jaguars' Kyle Brady used to be the best. ... And what's with the Colts' Edgerrin James? I realize that he still hasn't fully recovered from his knee injury, but he's simply killing them on offense. I mean, the guy just doesn't look like an NFL runner. That was evident Sunday night when he went out with a hamstring in the fourth quarter, and Ricky Williams went in, and lo and behold, Indy had a running game. Don't the coaches see that?

Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. To send a question to Dr. Z's Mailbag, click here.

 

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