Quote:
Originally Posted by apballin
Bright spot on shitty teams, on playoff teams special teams are irrelevant
Unless a spark is needed good teams fair catch / down everything so their star players get all the stats.
Without google name me the chiefs return man and punter
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I can understand where you're coming from if you mean you want your O and D units to shine enough that you don't have to rely as heavily on ST. That can be the case on teams with a truly dominant offense or defense. But ST are often overlooked and as tight as your typical NFL game is, you can't afford to neglect it.
I couldn't name the Chiefs punter, no. But I also couldn't name the Chargers punter from 2008 until I just looked him up. What I do remember is we lost a playoff game because that punter/punting unit fucked us up ALL night. This was Mike Scifres stat-line and our starting field position from that game...
1st: 51 yards to IND 10, fair catch
2nd: 57 yards to IND 15, 4 yard return
3rd: 50 yards to IND 3, downed
4th: 67 yards to IND 5, 2 yard return
5th: 38 yards to IND 9, fair catch
6th: 52 yards to IND 1, out of bounds (on 4th & 19)
Special teams also cost us big in the 2010 playoffs against the Jets with that late kickoff return to midfield. And obviously the Super Bowl onside kick that we muffed.
Those are just spotlighted examples because it was the playoffs. Point is, ST are overlooked and they shouldn't be.