Here’s why Bill Belichick finds punt and kickoff returns ‘very fascinating and intriguing’
After cornerback Cyrus Jones went down with a torn ACL during the team’s preseason finale against the New York Giants, the Patriots have been fielding questions about how they are going to fill the role of punt returner. On Friday, head coach Bill Belichick elaborated on the differences between strategizing for punt returns versus kickoffs.
Here’s how he characterized the two plays:
The easy answer is if one person does both, then that makes it a lot easier and it also makes the roster question a lot easier. I mean, the big difference, of course, is on kickoff returns, you get a chance to build up your speed, you get a chance to handle the ball cleanly, there’s nobody on top of you when you catch it and you’re able to run and set up your blocks and hit things full speed through that point, usually between the 20 and 30 yard line, where the coverage and the blockers in a wedge all sort of come together and the returner gets a chance to set those blocks up and hit them and try to get through there.
The punting game is a lot more situational. Mostly on kickoffs, the ball is always kicked from the same place. Rarely is there a difference. There are some, but they’re minimal – after a safety or that type of thing.
But punting, the ball can be anywhere, so the situation that they’re punting in can be quite diverse and sometimes complex. Punters are very good at directional punting and kicking different types of punts – the end-over-end punts, spiral punts, spirals that don’t turn over and so forth, so the ball handling is a little more complex and you have to deal with players around you as you’re catching the ball sooner or later.
I mean, sometimes a punter will outkick his coverage, but the majority of the time, there’s some decision making involved, whether to catch it and try to make the first coverage player or two miss to get the return started or fair catch it or to let it go and not catch the ball or to let it go over your head and let it go in the end zone for a touchback. So, there’s a lot of decision making on just whether to catch the ball and whether to catch and run with it or whether to catch it and just fair catch it that are played different than the kickoffs.
And then, in addition to that, you deal with defenders and coverage players that are on you a lot quicker on punt return, so sometimes you only have a yard or two or a couple yards to get into space, make a guy miss, break a tackle, whereas the kickoff is much more of a build-up play.
Because they’re so different, a lot of times you don’t have the same player doing both. And, a personal opinion is because they’re so different, I find the two plays very fascinating and intriguing and a great part of the strategy of football, just because the plays themselves are so different and the teaching, the rules, the skills and so forth.
And so that’s why I’m not in favor – I take an opposing view to the people who want to eliminate kickoffs from the game and try to have as few kickoffs as possible. I think it’s an exciting play, it’s a unique play and one that is a big momentum play because of what happened the play before – the score or, possibly, the two times at the start of the half where it’s kind of a tone setter or a pace setter for that opening play.
So, yeah, they’re played different and, of course, the same thing in the blocking. You get a chance to set up a return, whereas on the punting side of it, you have an option of trying to pressure the punter and block it or return it, but you kind of have to return it from the line of scrimmage. You can’t drop off too far because of the possibilities of fakes, so you have to keep enough guys up on the line of scrimmage to ensure that the ball is punted. And, you have to ensure the onside kick that you don’t get onside kicked to, but again, that’s much less frequent and the rules are in the kick returner team’s favor on the onside kick. So, it’s a big gamble for the kicking team to do that as a surprise tactic. So, the blocking patterns and techniques of blocking are quite different on the punt returns compared to what they are on kickoff returns.
