For clarity, I don't really know if it's worth it to have a full-time STs coach if he isn't a great recruiter. You only get so many spots and recruiting is a tough job.
I also don't think Read got this far in his career not knowing how to set up a punt return. There could be a million reasons to play it safe, whether it's with our own personnel, the situation in the game or on the field, or an opponent that likes to call fakes the way Northwestern did on a FG yesterday. It could be a 50-50 call to play it that way or "Oh my goodness, this is our only option right now." I don't know which one it is.
It's just that presumably, there are at least sane reasons they're choosing to do certain things. It wasn't a great day for that unit, but it hardly seems a disaster. Stopped one fake, allowed 1 return on 5 punts (for 5 yards). KOs weren't the best, although our kicks seemed short and shallow as well. I guess I'm not really in a fire anybody kind of mood this season. I'm sure if Read is offering nothing to the staff that Riley will move on in the end. The nature of special teams is kind of that it's hard to see value at a glance, though. It's a mostly ignored phase of the game and we bristle so much at Read's contract that anything less than nationally headlining play seems to invite scrutiny.
Is it a good idea to have 6 of the opposing team's players running full speed at him, increasing the chance that he'll fumble the ball and get injured in the dogpile? Is it that hard to ask that we block a few of those guys? I just am not seeing any reason at all to block NONE of them and also NOT try to block the kick. I've seen no explanation for that.
1) He either gets out of the way and lets the kick go (a common result for punts reaching that area of the field or so), or he makes a comfortable fair catch. He did the latter.
2) To give them a look that prevents any fake options being taken, right? Go ahead and try a coffin corner. Seems like an acceptable playcall, on that particular occasion.
If, by the way, DPE had fumbled another one, are we asking why we're calling for returns and not fair catches to be set up given that this 450K ST coordinator should know his guy is still building into it? Or if he should know that this is a tight game where we don't need to be risking any more bad miscues, instead letting the offense do their work? I don't know. The Dude mentioned confirmation bias. And I think that's getting to be a thing. We're not really interested in Special Teams, not that much. But we are on board with the Fo'Fiddy chant. It's going to come out at some point in every game this year, from some corner.
