The Opening Drive 9/19: Friday Special Teams Analysis
After hearing Bubba Ventrone's presser yesterday, here are the details on the issues.
Well, we’re back for a Friday edition of The Opening Drive, and I’ve made the executive decision to build these around special teams from the week before. The Browns talked all week about complimentary football—as they should have—and for us to cover them accurately, we can’t ignore one phase of the team. You can’t be comprehensive while ignoring one of the key phases, right?
As we all know, special teams haven’t exactly been stellar to start the season. While the return and coverage units were better last week, the kicking game ultimately cost the Browns. If you missed my analysis on Andre Szmyt’s second-half issues, you can find it here.
The big special teams play this week was the punt block. It swung the early momentum and allowed the Ravens to jump out to a lead in a first half where points were hard to come by. Special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone was asked about the block during yesterday’s media session: “Yeah, I mean, we just gotta protect better. Gotta block better. Gotta protect better. I mean, it’s pretty obvious what happened.”
The obvious issue was protector Ronnie Hickman missing his block, which allowed Baltimore’s Jake Hummel to get around him and get his right arm on the ball. But there’s some nuance I want to highlight here as well. Let’s get to it.
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The NFL’s punt and punt return structure boils down to how many bodies you want to send after the punt, and how many you want to protect for the return. You will see teams put eight men into the box on occasion to get after the punt, like you see here.
Then other times you will see them remove a man or two and place two over an outside “gunner” on the punt team to slow down how quick those coverage players get downfield. Like you see in this one below.
It’s all a matter of where you are trying to return the ball directionally: left, middle, or right. Then you are making a choice on going after the punt to keep the box players in long protecting, or in some cases, because you think you can actually block it.
Well, the Ravens thought they could get one on Sunday. On the Browns first punt of the day (from the left hash), the Ravens put eight forward in the box and had Hummel (35) start on the left side to see if he could get the right angle on the protector —Hickman.
Hickman handled it well that time, but Hummel and the Ravens wanted to try it from the opposite side. When the Browns punted from the same has in the 2nd quarter, they went back to it and had Hummel start opposite.
Hummel spoke on the plan the Ravens used after the game: “A couple of punt rushes before, we brought a pressure, and I felt like I could get a one-on-one with the personal protector. Luckily, our special teams coordinator Chris Horton stressed to me to run a similar block, and I got the one-on-one and was able to beat him and make the play."
I don’t think this was something groundbreaking from Baltimore but it was clearly a bad rep from Hickman. “We just gotta execute it better, blocking technique, have a base. Time our punch.” Ventrone noted. “Disappointing, but, yeah, it is what it is. You gotta coach it up and move on.”
Following this block, the Browns replaced Hickman with Delpit. The Ravens didn’t challenge another punt the rest of the day so it remains to be seen if the change will render effective, but the mishap already caused severe damage. They just can’t have these things happen when their margin for error is so small.
The Browns also allowed another 20+ yard return. These is now two weeks in a row with this issue and Ventrone spoke on the play yesterday. “We need to tackle better. We actually, we didn’t cover the punt poorly. We actually didn’t get a great ball to cover. The hang was low and we missed a number of tackles on the play. We’ve got to find a way to get the returner down.”
He was not wrong, obviously. This 1st quarter punt from Bojorquez was before his blocked punt later and before the injury that caused him problems. It was just a low, and poor punt overall. But the Browns were right there to make the play.
On most returns you will get two players who have a chance to make the stop. This one has Cam Thomas (99) and Devin Bush (30) miss tackles in the alley. Just can’t happen. Do your job.
Things were quiet on the day in kickoff, kick return, and field goal settings. Not much of note. Other than the Ravens kicker Tyler Loop missing the landing zone and kicking a kickoff out of bounds which afforded the Browns the ball at the 40-yard line both times. I have to say, I am enjoying the new rules for kickoffs this year. More challenging than ever.
The Browns are currently 26th in special teams grades according to PFF. This is a troubling concern. They need to clean these up quickly for any chance to win in the tough challenges ahead.
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