Green Bay Packers: Week 5 special teams recap

Week 5 brought another win for the Green Bay Packers, but there was a lot of room for improvement in a sloppy, ugly game.

The offense had some moments, but put up a largely disjointed effort which allowed the Giants to keep the game close despite plenty of their own issues on that end.

The special teams did few favors for the team, either.

Let’s delve into the depths of what happened in that regard.

Sep 11, 2016; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Green Bay Packers kicker Mason Crosby (2) made a field goal as punter Jacob Schum (10) holds the ball during the second half against the Jacksonville Jaguars at EverBank Field. Green Bay Packers defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 27-23. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Kicker

Kickoffs:

Scoring:

With the offense not finding much consistency, they had to turn to Crosby multiple times to put points on the board. Lucky for them he’s one of the better kickers in the league, so he of course converted all his tries, adding in a couple extra point kicks when Aaron Rodgers was able to complete a couple TD passes early on.

He’s usually good with his kickoffs as well, but that aspect could have been a bit better on Sunday night. It seemed every chance the Giants had to return the ball they garnered positive yardage; in a game where their offense wasn’t doing well, every bit of extra field position is welcomed and could have helped provide a spark.

Most of the negatives centered around the coverage unit more than anything Crosby did or didn’t do, but it would have been prudent to see him try booming a few more kicks out of the endzone once New York proved able to garner bundles of yardage when returning the ball.

Regardless, it was another strong effort from the Green Bay kicker.

Sep 18, 2016; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Green Bay Packers punter Jacob Schum (10) against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. The Vikings defeated the Packers 17-14. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

The Punter

Punts:

For every bit of positivity provided by Crosby in the kicking game, Schum managed to toss out negative contributions.

Just one of the Green Bay punter’s kicks reached 40 yards, and none managed to even get within the Giants’ 33 yard line.

What’s worse is that combined with a low distances he accrued, Schum couldn’t provide much hangtime on any of those kicks either, and his directional control was subpar as well.

It isn’t like Schum was pinned deep for any of these; the Packers were on their own 21 for his furthest-back attempt.

I’ve been as adamant as anyone at waiting awhile before making a judgment on his abilities (honing in on small sample sizes rarely works out, and even now he’s only four games into his Green Bay tenure), but this is a major concern now.

Even accounting for the small sample size, you would expect that in four games there would be some glimpse of potential mixed in; so far, Schum has given us practically none.

While punters who are exceptional with both distance and direction are pretty rare, a team has to expect they can get at least one of those aspects at a decent level out of their guy.

Schum is failing at both: among his 15 total punts, he has a single kick of 50+ yards, and just two kicks that have landed within the 20-yard line.

He’s proven unable to pile up yardage and also unable to pin teams deep in their own territory. Add in his basement-level hangtimes and a peculiar predilection to shanking, and it is baffling how this guy isn’t the worst-ranked person at his position (he’s close: 31st — out of 34 — in gross punt yards average, 22nd in net punt average, and 33rd in percentage of punts downed within the 20).

The Packers tend to not give up on players quickly even if they are trending in an undesirable direction, but with Schum’s struggles they must start preparing for a potential change in case he doesn’t show improvement soon.

At worst, players they already know such as the Tim Masthay and his training camp competition Peter Mortell are out there; at this point, fans might throw a celebration if Ted Thompson were to welcome either back into the fold.

There’s still time for Schum to show us something more, but he better start doing so now or he will find himself on the cutting block in short order.

Oct 11, 2015; Green Bay, WI, USA; Green Bay Packers wide receiver Ty Montgomery (88) rushes for a touchdown after catching a pass during the first quarter against the St. Louis Rams at Lambeau Field. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

The Return Units

Punts:

Kickoffs:

The return game rarely does much for Green Bay. Most weeks this tends to be mainly because the way half of that game — the kicking aspect — has become more and more phased out due to rule changes in recent years. Still, Green Bay is very low on the list in terms of production compared to the rest of the league.

They are tied for the second-lowest number of kick return attempts (5), have the 3rd-lowest return yardage (101), and are tied for 5th-lowest in longest return attempt (24 yards).

Picking up the 25 yards from touchbacks (up from 20 under the new rule) is mostly good strategy of course, and plays like the one Ty Montgomery made against the Lions in Week 3 (taking advantage of a little-known rule to turn a kick into a Detroit penalty by being the first to touch it while it was in the field of play and Montgomery was out of bounds on the sideline) don’t show up on the average stat sheet but are major contributions.

The punt return game doesn’t have the same rulebook-enforced limitations however, and has been even less helpful somehow.

Green Bay plays it abnormally safe here, sitting tied at 7th in the league in terms of fair catches (8) while having a measly 3 attempted returns (tied for last in the NFL) and a pitiful 6 yards on those returns (last in NFL).

Most weeks, this safe gameplan works out relatively well; they don’t add much, but they also take nothing away, and many of the fair catches end up preventing the opposition from potentially trapping Green Bay even closer to the goal line.

As long as they aren’t getting flagged for penalties, they end up being a slight positive at worst.

They screwed up multiple times in that aspect this time around as part of gaffes experienced in their decision-making and execution.

On two of the 6 punts by the Giants, we saw the return unit flagged. The first knocked Green Bay back from what was already a bad starting point to having their offense begin within their own 10 yard line.

The second took the Packers from beyond touchback territory to starting within their own 20 again.

The good news here is that unlike with other areas on the team with problems, this one at least has a simple solution: clean up the penalties.

Even if this aspect of the team doesn’t start piling up more yardage, just avoiding penalties is enough to allow them to be an okay (if uninspiring) unit.

Dec 6, 2015; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants wide receiver Dwayne Harris (17) returns a punt for touchdown against New York Jets tight end Jeff Cumberland (85) at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

The Coverage Units

Punts:

Kickoffs:

Schum set a low bar to overcome with his exploits on Sunday, but this area may have frustrated me even more.

Unlike with the punter, I have relatively moderate expectations for the coverage team; most weeks, they either reach or surpass it even despite Schum’s struggles to provide them much help with his leg. This week however, they simply did not play well.

We’ll start with the punts. There were four to potentially deal with, but two of those ended up going out of bounds, leaving just two times where the unit should have needed to do anything.

The first of those let the Giants’ returner almost bring it to the Giants’ 40 yard line; it was a short return, but not locking up a quick tackle gave away yardage that shouldn’t have been surrendered. The second was a fair catch, so they did their job there.

So that’s it, right? Nope. On one of those two punts that went out of bounds, the Packers were flagged for a 15-yard penalty. What happened?

Jeff Janis, acting as a gunner on the outside, was pushed out of bounds; in that situation, a player must immediately fight his way back into the field before trying to continue running down the field.

Janis made no attempt at that, running about 30 yards before even getting close to coming back onto the field, so he was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Mistakes like that are easily avoidable on their own — just get back on the field! Even if the opponents sit there to box you out, it almost certainly ends up being a better outcome than the 15-yard penalty you will definitely receive for failing to try returning to the field in short order — but the error is made look even more foolish when there isn’t even an attempted return.

Obviously it would be difficult for Janis to have known the ball was headed out of bounds, but you have to realize that even if you expect it to be in the field of play and landing in a returner’s hands with him having room to run, you are doing nothing but exacerbating the problem by basically gifting 15 yards to the opponent regardless of the kick’s outcome.

Moving on to the kick coverage, which provided its own set of frustrations.

First off, there was only the one touchback among the 5 kickoffs so that didn’t help. The coverage guys had plenty of opportunities to stop the returner in his tracks pretty quickly regardless of that however, and failed to do so time and time again.

Three of the returns went for at least 35 yards, with the Giants’ Dwayne Harris and Bobby Rainey leaving a wake of missed and flailing tackles behind them.

Even the shortest of the returns came with an unsavory caveat. It went for only 26 yards, out to the Giants’ 28 yard line, but it wouldn’t have even happened at all if not for a miscue. That kick was actually a re-kick!

On the first attempt, Crosby had actually converted a touchback, but someone on the coverage team was a step ahead of him, causing the refs to throw a flag for offsides.

The re-kick was 5 yards further back, practically removing another touchback as an option altogether, and again we saw the coverage unit unable to make the initial stop, yet again compounding the issues already stacked up.

I should mention that few teams have the return game weaponry of the Giants (they rank #3 in kick return yardage, with Harris being one of the better return options in the league), but much of the damage he did was preventable if the Packers’ coverage team had finished off their initial tackle attempts.

Fortunately for Green Bay, the defense was playing on such a high level that practically none of these screw-ups managed to make a lasting impact, but that is playing with fire.

Had the Giants found any offensive rhythm, they had the passing game options to blow apart a injury-stricken secondary, and there will likely be plenty of weeks where other offenses manage to key in on those weaknesses with their own weapons (among opponents still to come: Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, and a rematch with Minnesota).

Giving up yardage in the return game gives those dangerous attacks shorter fields, and then even if they manage a quick defensive stop we might then see Green Bay’s own offense now trapped deep in their own territory.

This was by far the worst performance of this season by this unit; based on how they played other weeks, I wouldn’t expect many games quite as bad as this.

They’ve proven a performance like this is within their repertoire now however, and that is worrisome going forward. Rather than a lack of skill, it showed a lack of focus and execution; issues such as this can pop up seemingly out of nowhere, and rarely do they happen just once.

There’s enough evidence to support the idea that Ron Zook and the Packers will iron out the mistakes (remember, this team was among the worst in the league on special teams a couple years ago; they now sit firmly in the middle) so I’m not going to worry too much off of one game, but my concern has been piqued.

Hopefully it will be laid back to rest over the next few weeks.