Panthers are best in kick return coverage and second worst in punt return coverage

[My Goodness My Guinness]

I like looking through league stats on ESPN from time to time and just saw that we have the best opponent kick return average in the league of 16.6 yards/return, but we have the second worst opponent punt return average of 13.2 yards/return. Maybe the kick return average is inflated by opponents attempting to return Gano's kickoffs deep in their own endzone, but this seems strange considering a lot of the same guys play kicks and punts right? 

[Mr. Scot]

We honestly haven't had good special teams coaching at any point under Rivera.

DeHaven is a good coach but I think asking him to coach while he was battling cancer was too much.

[My Goodness My Guinness]

Yeah it's been that way for a while. Every time we have to punt from deep in our own territory late in the game 70,000 fans pray for a block in the back penalty. I was just pleasantly surprised by the kickoff stat. 

[uncfan888]

It's weird cuz when Gano doesn't try to boom it out of the back of the end zone, we stop them before they get to the 25 pretty consistently..  But he still kicks it deep into the end zone more often than not

[Mr. Scot]

I still remember back when Richard Rodgers was the ST coach.

Oy...

[Snake]

1 hour ago, Mr. Scot said:

We honestly haven't had good special teams coaching at any point under Rivera.

DeHaven is a good coach but I think asking him to coach while he was battling cancer was too much.

I really don't feel we practice ST all that much either. It's why we have a sloppy unit. 

[Mr. Scot]

Just now, Snake said:

I really don't feel we practice ST all that much either. It's why we have a sloppy unit. 

Decisions on how much practice time gets devoted to what are made by the head coach.

[Snake]

49 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Decisions on how much practice time gets devoted to what are made by the head coach.

Yea and it's why no matter the season we are always bad. 

[outlaw4]

3 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

We honestly haven't had good special teams coaching at any point under Rivera.

DeHaven is a good coach but I think asking him to coach while he was battling cancer was too much.

I've been a fan since 2003 and I think the only two good things I remember about Panthers special teams are Kasay and Smitty.

[t96]

3 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

I still remember back when Richard Rodgers was the ST coach.

Oy...

That wasn't that long ago Scot. I'd be worried if you didn't remember that...

[Mr. Scot]

23 minutes ago, thomas96 said:

That wasn't that long ago Scot. I'd be worried if you didn't remember that...

I was trying to forget it.

[arbnranger]

43 minutes ago, outlaw4 said:

I've been a fan since 2003 and I think the only two good things I remember about Panthers special teams are Kasay and Smitty.

Yea those come to mind. Michael Bates from the late 90's was a bad ass too. Not a great receiver that I remember but would probably give Ginn a run for his money in the 100 yard dash . 

On a different note, just from the eye test I'm not sure why teams don't just take a knee. Starting from the 25 seems like a better average starting position than most of the returns I've seen watching football this year. 

[GRWatcher]

5 hours ago, arbnranger said:

Yea those come to mind. Michael Bates from the late 90's was a bad ass too. Not a great receiver that I remember but would probably give Ginn a run for his money in the 100 yard dash . 

On a different note, just from the eye test I'm not sure why teams don't just take a knee. Starting from the 25 seems like a better average starting position than most of the returns I've seen watching football this year. 

I always enjoyed watching He Hate Me (Rod Smart) too.

The only reason I can think of for running out of the end zone is that, if they're able to break a long runback, it's a tremendous momentum swing in their favor, energizing the team. Of course if they do score, that's another thing too.