Special Team concerns

[Basbear]

Top assistant left for Buffalo. 

New rookie kicker.

Special team aces are gone- Jacobs(now asst coach), Bryd, Barner, Norris, and CAP.

Young new PK and KP with very limited exp.

3 wavier claims have 1 week to adjust to important roles.

JJ Jansen had a minor hand injury.

If Chase Blackburn can overcome ALL of this, give him an award and pay raise!

ME- 

[BrianS]

Byrd is a special teams "ace" now?  Is this the same Byrd who hasn't managed to play more than 8 games in a season ever?  The same Byrd with a grand total of 22 combined kickoff and punt returns in his career?  The one with a grand total of three tackles?  That Byrd?  An Ace?

And Kenjon Barner?  Really?  The guy who has appeared in a whopping total of 12 games for the Panthers with 18 combined returns and 1 total tackle?  This is our missing Ace?

Oh, but CAP!  Yea, 32 total games, no returns, 6 total tackles.  He's our man!

Wait, wait, wait!  Norris!  He was great on ST!  To the tune of ONE total tackle last year.  Definitely an Ace.

Ben Jacobs?  Yea, he was pretty good on ST.  His 2015 was amazing.  Fifteen tackles.

Yes, we have a new kicker.  Blackburn will have almost nothing to do with his success.  The guy has either figured it out or he hasn't.  The leg is there, Blackburn didn't develop it.  The consistency may fall on Blackburn . . . but wouldn't that also be true of last year and Gano . . . the year everyone thought he was so bad?

 

Listen, ST is all about attitude and scheme.  Get your guys bought in with a good scheme and you're fine.  

[RevJ]

Kunaszyk, with lots of work and prayer, will replace Norris' one tackle from last year.

Zylstra will be better than the guys you are afraid of losing, just by himself.

If Kunaszyk and Zylstra both struggle, they will always have an unfair edge in Scrabble.

[Moo Daeng]

non of those losses where aces

[Waldo]

We just won't know what we have till they play, and even then it will be week 1 and that won't be the whole picture yet. As far as this goes, I'm hopeful and more concerned about other things. Oline, Cam holding up and new defense coming together all come to mind. If all that holds up, we can tweak the special teams. 

[mc52beast]

Can’t remember the last season was that ST wasn’t a concern. This facet of the game has been horrible for a long time, kind of like the safety position. Hopefully Chase can get everyone bought in and we will be surprised this year.

Dont forget... we have that Ray Ray dude now

[Captain Obvious]

WoW

[GRWatcher]

What ST needs is time and speed. We have a lot of new players on the squad and in preseason not once did they make it downfield before the ball did by a wide margin.  That gives the returner a good 10-15 yards before contact. And it will take time for them to coordinate with both Parlarday's punts and our new kicker's kick offs when he doesn't send the ball to Mint Street lol. 

[Moo Daeng]

Some changes could help. It's not like they were great to begin with. I think that Blackburn will get us going in the right direction.

[Khyber53]

You don't need great special teams, or even good ones. Just average will suffice. Let's hope we're a bit better than that.

[Jeremy Igo]

We have one special teams ace his first name is colin his middle name is fug you his last name is mother fuggin jones.

[Basbear]

Should have used a different term than "ace", but special specialist didnt have the goods. 

Byrd has 6x the number of PK than ray-ray. Right now if Byrd was a FA, id prefer him.

10 ST tackles is a lot, normally the leader is around 15. Panthers lost about 80% of their ST production.

This fine according to everyone.