Does it bother anyone else when Rex returns punts?

[Jason Sitoke]

Welcome to the board.

What kind of chances are you talking about? You'll notice that Rex generally comes in to return punts when they need a tenured guy back there to just call a fair catch. Burkhead isn't a great return guy because he doesn't have great speed like Abdullah does, but he has a lot composure and he's a good safety net if you need a reliable player back there to just call a fair catch. That reliability isn't there with those other guys.

In essence, they're taking less of a chance having Burkhead back there.

FWIW...coming out of high school, Rex ran a 4.46 40 yd. Abdullah was listed as running a 4.51.

Believe it or not, Burkhead just might be tough, white, AND fast.

 

[NoLongerN]

Thanks for the welcome to the board. I just worry about losing Rex on a return that someone else could handle.

Understand the control issue, but in the long run -----------?

You answered your own concern ... "in the long run" ... Rex isn't the guy to do it long term ... only in cases the coach doesn't trust anyone else. When Abdulah gets up to speed (trusted in the near future) I'm sure he will be the guy in this spot you are concerned about.

 

[VA Husker Fan]

I don't get the concern for injury. One guy in about every 10 seasons gets clobbered on a fair catch, and we're supposed to protect Rex? He's got good hands, that's why he's back there on those plays, to make sure we don't turn it back over deep in our territory.

Maybe we should keep Rex out on 1st and 2nd down too, because he might get hurt on those carries, and he's really most valuable getting us a first down?!?

To everyone poking fun at this topic...you'd all be standing there, jaw dropped, hands on your head if you saw him get hurt on a punt return! Then you'd all be crying about how it's dumb to have him back there and how these coaches need to get there heads out of their.....

Don't be hypocrites and act like if we lost Rex on a meaningless punt return/fair catch, that our team would be fine and you wouldn't be upset. If something like that did happen, every husker message board would be going berserk!!

He's way too valuable at RB and we need all the carries out of him we can get. I'm not saying to coddle him and run him once every drive....but the point is not to give that 1 extra chance for the opposing team to take a cheap shot on a defenseless player.

If you think this happens once every 10 seasons, you're naive...

It's a meaningless fair catch until someone drops it and the other team recovers deep in our territory. Then it's not meaningless at all, and people will scream why don't we have a better hands person back there? Let's be honest, what will you be doing then?

If he got hurt I'd be furious at the cheap shot player who hurt him, not the decision to put him back there.

And I'm guess I'm naive. When has someone else gotten drilled hard enough to be injured after calling for a fair catch? I was thinking of a Fresno St player hurting an Oregon St returner about 10 years ago, but I don't think that was even a fair catch, just an early hit.

 

[WYHusk]

Welcome to the board.

What kind of chances are you talking about? You'll notice that Rex generally comes in to return punts when they need a tenured guy back there to just call a fair catch. Burkhead isn't a great return guy because he doesn't have great speed like Abdullah does, but he has a lot composure and he's a good safety net if you need a reliable player back there to just call a fair catch. That reliability isn't there with those other guys.

In essence, they're taking less of a chance having Burkhead back there.

FWIW...coming out of high school, Rex ran a 4.46 40 yd. Abdullah was listed as running a 4.51.

Believe it or not, Burkhead just might be tough, white, AND fast.

 

[brasky]

Coach JP said on the radio the other day that that if Rex is back there its just because they want to secure the ball for the offense to go out on the field. It seems like the coaching staff isn't too concerned with making big plays on punt returns if the outcome of the game is still up in the air.

Also, he said it wasn't anything against the other returners, but they had that much more confidence in Rex's ability to secure the ball.

 

[Hoosker]

It really doesn't matter who returns the punts because our coverage is awful.

That made no sense? This thread is about when we are fielding the catch.

Which isn't very often. You know i'm right though. Name one good thing about our punt coverage. We don't go for the block and we hardly ever get a chance for our returner to make a big play.

I agree that the thread isn't about our coverage team, I was just joking. Lighten up guy.

Actually you're wrong and your original comment didn't make sense. Punt coverage is the unit on the field when WE are punting. Punt return is the unit on the field when we are receiving the punt.

How foolish of me..

 

[Landomatic]

I heard Dion Sanders talking about this subject on the radio the other day...having play makers return kicks/punts. He's kind of a blow hard, but he made a lot of good points about what I think he called "invisible stats" and how valuable they are. His point was that even if the player doesn't return many balls or take it to the house a bunch or have a crazy ton of return yards statistically, you gain a lot of "invisible stats" just by having that big time player out there due to the threat he poses. Having that one big threat on the field causes teams to do things like kick away from him, kick it out of bounds, shank it because that threat is in their head, coverage has to account for them, etc. His stance was that all of those things add up to a lot more valuable upside than the potential downside of the player getting hurt. Of course Dion used to return kicks and I believe the context of the conversation was regarding the Cowboys having Dez Briant back returning kicks, but I'd think this would be the same thing. Anyway, made sense to me.