I suspect that a large part of our special teams woes last year were due to them just not prioritizing them. Both with roster, and time spent on it in practice. I have literally nothing to back this up other than our roster seemingly not prioritizing it, and the assumption that that also means it isn’t prioritized elsewhere.
It seems like as soon as they realized they couldn’t neglect returns and coverage, they quickly improved. I’m glad. I don’t need to see them be at the top in special teams… IMO most teams that are built that way are just desperate for something, somewhere, somehow… But I would like them to be average and have the special teams not be a liability. Last year it was. This year it appears that it isn’t, knock on wood.
Covey is getting better coverage and not being hit by 5 guys at once. Because anyone that says that is/was coveys fault, just doesn’t understand punt blocking and how impossible it is to not get rocked if you have terrible blocking. Even an elite return man can’t do shit with bad blocking. I think he has improved, and will continue to do so, but I think more importantly, the coverage has allowed him to improve, and show how decent/good/great he is.
We still need to improve at punter. Its been better, but only due to our coverage. We are still out kicking our coverage, and just not great in general. I’m not wanting the best punter in the league… I’m not needing some guy that will win us the field position battle… We have an offense/defense that can/should do that. We just need someone to make safe punts and not loose the battle.
Yeah punting has been pretty par to sub par this season. But its not the end of the world , just needs some work
I just gotta point out how hilarious it is that on the Punter EPA list the bottom 3 guys are all former eagles in Zentner, Siposs and Wing. Like literally the 3 worst punters in football were all on this team. That’s incredible.
FWIW Mann ranks 19th/36 on the list, which makes him pretty average. He hasn’t been great, he hasn’t had a ton of reps either. But he hasn’t been mind numbingly awful like Siposs. Yet.
Most people only really notice special teams when it’s bad. If no one is talking about special teams, it probably means it’s good.
Who has been balling out in coverage?
I thought Shaun Bradley was our special teams ace and he went down with an Achilles.
Is it the rooks like Ricks, Ringo and Brown?
I’ll take good.
Except for the Miami game- and that was due to wind I believe- they’ve been pretty good.
I was a tad perplexed Jake was still kicking short when they swapped sides though.
4th in Special Teams DVOA is wild, huge improvement from last year
Our punting is not good. We are 3rd worst in Net Punting Yards (this is average, has nothing to do with # of punts)
Surprisingly stout.
The focus on depth in the off-season meant that special teams had a lot of quality bodies to pick through
Meanwhile, Covey has been a monster on returns, typically he’s getting 10-15 yards when he runs a punt back.
Punting….I suspect the Eagles won’t be doing much of it. And it seems they’re going to use 3 more call ups on a new tryout guy. There’s just not a great answer there
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I suspect that a large part of our special teams woes last year were due to them just not prioritizing them. Both with roster, and time spent on it in practice. I have literally nothing to back this up other than our roster seemingly not prioritizing it, and the assumption that that also means it isn’t prioritized elsewhere.
It seems like as soon as they realized they couldn’t neglect returns and coverage, they quickly improved. I’m glad. I don’t need to see them be at the top in special teams… IMO most teams that are built that way are just desperate for something, somewhere, somehow… But I would like them to be average and have the special teams not be a liability. Last year it was. This year it appears that it isn’t, knock on wood.
Covey is getting better coverage and not being hit by 5 guys at once. Because anyone that says that is/was coveys fault, just doesn’t understand punt blocking and how impossible it is to not get rocked if you have terrible blocking. Even an elite return man can’t do shit with bad blocking. I think he has improved, and will continue to do so, but I think more importantly, the coverage has allowed him to improve, and show how decent/good/great he is.
We still need to improve at punter. Its been better, but only due to our coverage. We are still out kicking our coverage, and just not great in general. I’m not wanting the best punter in the league… I’m not needing some guy that will win us the field position battle… We have an offense/defense that can/should do that. We just need someone to make safe punts and not loose the battle.
Yeah punting has been pretty par to sub par this season. But its not the end of the world , just needs some work
I just gotta point out how hilarious it is that on the Punter EPA list the bottom 3 guys are all former eagles in Zentner, Siposs and Wing. Like literally the 3 worst punters in football were all on this team. That’s incredible.
FWIW Mann ranks 19th/36 on the list, which makes him pretty average. He hasn’t been great, he hasn’t had a ton of reps either. But he hasn’t been mind numbingly awful like Siposs. Yet.
Most people only really notice special teams when it’s bad. If no one is talking about special teams, it probably means it’s good.
Who has been balling out in coverage?
I thought Shaun Bradley was our special teams ace and he went down with an Achilles.
Is it the rooks like Ricks, Ringo and Brown?
I’ll take good.
Except for the Miami game- and that was due to wind I believe- they’ve been pretty good.
I was a tad perplexed Jake was still kicking short when they swapped sides though.
4th in Special Teams DVOA is wild, huge improvement from last year
Our punting is not good. We are 3rd worst in Net Punting Yards (this is average, has nothing to do with # of punts)
Surprisingly stout.
The focus on depth in the off-season meant that special teams had a lot of quality bodies to pick through
Meanwhile, Covey has been a monster on returns, typically he’s getting 10-15 yards when he runs a punt back.
Punting….I suspect the Eagles won’t be doing much of it. And it seems they’re going to use 3 more call ups on a new tryout guy. There’s just not a great answer there