Kickoff returns

Don't put Mat Bryant back there ever again. He is indecisive and goes down with the slightest touch.
How many times last night did we start around the 10-15 yard line?
Just take it at the 25 and let Ben do his thing.

 

Can't take it at the 25 if the opponent is kicking it to the 5 yard line.

 

Bryant had a bad game on returns to be sure. I'll give him credit for getting out of the End Zone - that's the kind of shiftiness that made him so deadly two years back - but he didn't need to go back in there in the first place.

The drops looked to be concentration issues. I don't want to go back to the days when we had reliable plodders like Cary Davis back there (keep the ball safe, but never any chance of a big return), but it would be nice if we could just get one consistent returner...

 

Maybe they were kicking it short because Bryant was back there.

Don’t understand why they would consider him on KOR. It takes shiftiness and agility to be a KOR. He’s a straight line sprinter. Stars would have to be perfectly aligned for him to hit a return. I’m telling you this won’t end well. He’ll have a crucial fumble on one of these at some point

 

JuJu's out and Watson is on the PS. Those were our two returners. They have to have someone do it. I'm sure they'll do something different with JuJu back next week. I'd suspect JuJu and Fitz will be the two.

 

There’s no doubt in my mind the ravens kicked it short intentionally. It makes sense. He’s new at it and struggling. No point in letting them start at the 25 when there’s a good chance of pinning us deeper.

 

You are right, it was intentionally short because they saw how he was doing. Good coaching on the Ravens special team coach. Their kicker Tucker has one of the strongest legs in the league and can kick it deep any time he wants to. Bad coaching by our special team coach to let Bryant back there for so many times. Bryant's decision making and quickness is not the same this year, he is fast but not quick.

You can bet Belicheat will do the same and kick short so he has to run it out. The Patriots do this often on purpose.

 

Bryant is too gawky to return kickoffs. Bring back Stefan Logan!

 

I’m sure juju will be back there against the patriots.

 

I think your going to see Ju Ju and Toussaint back there next week.

Also bet your bottom dollar BB is going to have Gotowski kick everyone to the goal line. Because we can't return worth a poo....

 

That guy was lightning in a bottle. He had a decent couple years with the Lions after we released him. Think that was the last time we had a real return game. Doesn’t he hold the Steelers record for return yards in a season?

 

Logan was the perfect, prototypical KR. Short, quick and elusive.

 

Can’t remember why we released him. I always hated the move. He was effective in limited use as a wr/rb and outstanding as a kr. Made no sense to me at the time.

Edit- now I see why they released Logan. Emanuel Sanders, Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown, Hines Ward, ARE. Hindsight being 20/20 I would have kept Logan over ARE, but they definitely made the right decision regarding the other 4.

 

I would have rather seen Eli Rodgers if that’s the case

 

I bet if he had a bong hit he would light up the field.

Maybe he's going thru DT's of the brain or something.

 

Despite years of behind the scenes lobbying by Ricky Williams, that is not the kind of grass the field is made of

 

Way I saw it - where #10 carried it out to (err... fumbled it out to) was about where we would have started after the obligatory blocking penalty on a decent return. So, choose your poison. Toissant grabbed the final KO for what it's worth.

 

We also can't return a kick without a block in the back.

 

We also had Dirty Red out and not sure how else the special teams return unit for blocking was affected. I’m sure Vance is on that team as well. Take those two out and there goes two decent blockers no matter who is returning kicks from the 1.

 

Everyone is down on Bryant for fielding that kickoff and almost getting tackled in the endzone for a safety but short of diving forward there wasn't much he could do. On the replay you can see the backspin on that ball was perfect, it was going to die at the one. So yeah bad that he almost took it back into the endzone and got tackled but give him his due for getting it foreward to at least the 9.