They have found the offense

Nothing has been found. It was never lost. The cyborgian knee has finally completely assimilated itself into its hosts' nervous system. It happened exactly when the second half of the Bears game began. 2-4...3-6...we've been here before. Now we've found our can. Time to open up that whoopass.
 
I don't miss Danny Smith one bit. I miss Lorenzo Alexander, the true captain and leader of our special teams. He's the difference here, not Danny Smith. What, all these guys forgot how to play special teams because Danny Smith left? Oh wait, we weren't doing crap in the return game last year either, and we had like eleventy-billion field goals and punts blocked also. So, nothing has changed.
 
Kickoff & punt coverage were actually pretty good on Sunday, except for the one Devin Hester return. The left side failed to contain, giving Hester an open lane (after Niles Paul tried to tickle him to the ground and missed). But Hester is pretty good at the whole return thing, considering he's tied with Deion Sanders for the most in NFL history.
 
I'll take the lack of return when Danny Smith was here over starting inside the 10 yard line more often than not because Morgan is a completely unable to make a good decision.

For crying out loud any 8 year old that plays madden can determine when to fair catch and when to take your chances letting it bounce.

Lanky Livingston said:
Kickoff & punt coverage were actually pretty good on Sunday, except for the one Devin Hester return. The left side failed to contain, giving Hester an open lane (after Niles Paul tried to tickle him to the ground and missed). But Hester is pretty good at the whole return thing, considering he's tied with Deion Sanders for the most in NFL history.
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Hester hadn't returned one for a TD in 2 years. It's not a coincidence he got one against us. We've given up a return TD two weeks in a row, and going against Denver next week there's a solid shot for a third. All total Special Teams has given up at least 1 TD for 3 straight games now.

I'm willing to give Burns the same excuse I gave Smith - this team was so bad when Shanahan took over that almost all decent player acquisitions have been turned into starters, leaving special teams pretty much decimated from a talent/intelligence level. Burns is getting the leftovers. That doesn't justify not being able to fair catch correctly from a guy that we paid top dollar for in free agency.

If nothing else kick the damn ball out of bounds and fair catch everything at all times. At some point the general odds will work out better than what we've been getting.
 
tshile said:
Hester hadn't returned one for a TD in 2 years. It's not a coincidence he got one against us. We've given up a return TD two weeks in a row, and going against Denver next week there's a solid shot for a third. All total Special Teams has given up at least 1 TD for 3 straight games now.
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He didn't have any TD returns last year, but he returned 3 for TDs in 2011. Not exactly a million years ago. Not to mention, his punt return average in 2012 was over 25 yards per return, about 1,000 yards more than any Redskin punt returner in the last 50 years. LOL.

He also had 6 TD returns in 2007, and then zero in 2008 AND 2009. He's going to have up and down years, its the nature of the position.

I'm willing to give Burns the same excuse I gave Smith - this team was so bad when Shanahan took over that almost all decent player acquisitions have been turned into starters, leaving special teams pretty much decimated from a talent/intelligence level. Burns is getting the leftovers. That doesn't justify not being able to fair catch correctly from a guy that we paid top dollar for in free agency.

If nothing else kick the damn ball out of bounds and fair catch everything at all times. At some point the general odds will work out better than what we've been getting.
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Special teams always gets the "leftovers." As I said, coverage units were actually pretty good on Sunday, outside of Hester being Hester on one return. And Paul had him dead to rights, and should have made the tackle.

Kick returns, 7 for 105 (15 yard average). Punt returns, 3 for 85 yards (long of 81).

For reference, 15 yards per kickoff return would be second-worst in the NFL right between Green Bay (14.9) and Washington (19.0) this season.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/team/_/stat/returning/sort/yardsPerKickReturn
 
I'm sorry, but I don't give much of a break for 'Hester being Hester.' Punt the ball out of bounds then. That was a game changing play. Instead of putting the bears out, we went into a shootout with them for the next 2 quarters.

Hester's lack of returns is not because Hester is bad - it's because teams have adjusted for it. They kick away from him. For some reason we are one of the dummies that can't figure it out.

In addition to that we've resorted to squib kicking of kickoffs because, unlike 2/3 of the league, we can't kick it out of bounds consistently - hell, we can't kick it into the endzone consistently - and we can't cover.

ST always gets the leftovers, but on good teams the ST leftovers are young guys being groomed to be starters one day. On our team it's guys that probably wouldn't have a job anywhere else in the league. That's what happens when you have 10 years of complete mismanagement and dysfunction in your organization. It takes a while to get back to having quality people on ST. We're still lacking quality starters for half of our defense, and 1/3 of our offense, for example.
 
tshile said:
I'm sorry, but I don't give much of a break for 'Hester being Hester.' Punt the ball out of bounds then. That was a game changing play. Instead of putting the bears out, we went into a shootout with them for the next 2 quarters.

Hester's lack of returns is not because Hester is bad - it's because teams have adjusted for it. They kick away from him. For some reason we are one of the dummies that can't figure it out.

In addition to that we've resorted to squib kicking of kickoffs because, unlike 2/3 of the league, we can't kick it out of bounds consistently - hell, we can't kick it into the endzone consistently - and we can't cover.

ST always gets the leftovers, but on good teams the ST leftovers are young guys being groomed to be starters one day. On our team it's guys that probably wouldn't have a job anywhere else in the league. That's what happens when you have 10 years of complete mismanagement and dysfunction in your organization. It takes a while to get back to having quality people on ST. We're still lacking quality starters for half of our defense, and 1/3 of our offense, for example.
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With all due respect, teams started "adjusting" for Hester after he took 11 kick & punt returns to the house in his first two seasons. He still breaks them occasionally, as evidenced by the 7 return TDs since then. He is going to break one every once in awhile, until he simply can't run anymore. You just can't defend a guy with that kind of vision and patience every kick.
 
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