Ahhh..The Defo jokes never get old.
But, seriously....Our ST play has been absolutely terrible in both games this season. Let's break it down.
-Sinor has been pretty fantastic, as has punt coverage. Punting is the one positive of all the facets of ST play.
-Grogan has already missed 2 FG and had 2 PAT's blocked. Maybe it is not all on him. Maybe the OL, holder or center/deep snapper share some of the blame. I don't know. But, something is broken and it needs to be fixed or it will end up resulting in 2-3 close losses this season.
-Grogan's leg isn't strong enough to kick the ball deep enough (or get better hang time) on KO. They had 1 long return last night, and that is 1 too many IMO. This is one I think we can live with if there is no better option, but watching other games yesterday, I noted that there were very few returns even attempted.
-The biggest ST problem I am seeing has to do with punt returns. On every single one, this season, it looks like we have 4 guys on the field. Three to block and one to catch the ball. The ball comes down to McClesky and he has 6-7 guys surrounding him with at least 2 in his lap. This is a huge problem, and one that I can't comprehend. We did not have the problem last season, and I can't imagine that all the guys who were able to slow down defenders, on PR, are no longer on the roster.
What is even more mystifying about the ST regression is that almost all aspects of ST were average to well above average last season, and we have the same coach this season. Did some of our best ST guys graduate? Or, are we trying to force feed ST plays to other guys in order to keep our better ST players fresh for Offense/Defense? Something is wrong and it should be fixable.
But, seriously....Our ST play has been absolutely terrible in both games this season. Let's break it down.
-Sinor has been pretty fantastic, as has punt coverage. Punting is the one positive of all the facets of ST play.
-Grogan has already missed 2 FG and had 2 PAT's blocked. Maybe it is not all on him. Maybe the OL, holder or center/deep snapper share some of the blame. I don't know. But, something is broken and it needs to be fixed or it will end up resulting in 2-3 close losses this season.
-Grogan's leg isn't strong enough to kick the ball deep enough (or get better hang time) on KO. They had 1 long return last night, and that is 1 too many IMO. This is one I think we can live with if there is no better option, but watching other games yesterday, I noted that there were very few returns even attempted.
-The biggest ST problem I am seeing has to do with punt returns. On every single one, this season, it looks like we have 4 guys on the field. Three to block and one to catch the ball. The ball comes down to McClesky and he has 6-7 guys surrounding him with at least 2 in his lap. This is a huge problem, and one that I can't comprehend. We did not have the problem last season, and I can't imagine that all the guys who were able to slow down defenders, on PR, are no longer on the roster.
What is even more mystifying about the ST regression is that almost all aspects of ST were average to well above average last season, and we have the same coach this season. Did some of our best ST guys graduate? Or, are we trying to force feed ST plays to other guys in order to keep our better ST players fresh for Offense/Defense? Something is wrong and it should be fixable.
