Special teams coaches across the league are scheming for the new play, but we won’t really know anything until the preseason. Plus, new contracts, new coordinators, rookie QBs and more.
Joe Judge is separated from it now, having left the New England Patriots in January and gone to Ole Miss to join an old buddy, Lane Kiffin, with whom he’s connected through Nick Saban.
“I hope so,” Judge said, from his summer vacation last week. “There’s been enough thought put into the play, enough planning and enough talking through the situations, the strategy and the unintended consequences. I think the coaches who have worked on this have done a really good job. I think it’s given an opportunity for the play to have an impact because you have to play the play. Ultimately in football, I’m a big fan of giving teams opportunities to win in different ways.
For those who haven’t been paying as close attention, we can start with a refresher. The proposal that was voted through calls for the kicker to kick off from his own 35-yard line, with the rest of the kickoff team having one foot on the return team’s 40. The return team will have nine or 10 players in the “setup zone,” between the 35 and 30, with at least seven having one foot on the 35. A maximum of two returners can be in the “landing zone” inside the 20.
That, Judge continues, will almost certainly spill into the season. “Around Week 5, you’re going to start seeing it level out a little bit. Teams are going to look around the league and see what’s really working, what they can take from other teams that are having success, what they’re doing that fits their own personnel. You’re going to see, not uniform, but similar schemes evolving and developing.
“This is going to be much more close-contact, more linebacker technique coming downhill and shedding a block to get the ball carrier. You used to have natural layers in the coverage. You’d have your penetrators, your Matt Slaters of the world, and a linebacker naturally playing off him. That would give you the natural levels that, if the first level guy missed the tackle, someone was folding over to make a tackle.
“If you can move it around, that will dictate and affect teams’ abilities of scheming you up and getting to a return with a double team or multiple double teams,” Judge says. “They have to play a little more reactive. That’s where it’ll give you the advantage as a kickoff team of making them play more of a base middle scheme or an automatic return scheme, where they can get a free runner, get someone down there to make a big coverage play. The kickers are a big part of this play.
At this point, though, all of it is guesswork, both for all of us on the outside, as well as everyone on the inside. Which is why, I’d bet, it’ll be a bigger discussion point than you think five or six weeks from now.Lamb is one of several high-profile Cowboys seeking a new contract / Brad Mills-USA TODAY SportsI didn’t want to make this column team-centric, because all 32 enter camp with questions.
That’s especially relevant in the cases of Tagovailoa and Love, because of questions related to health, in the case of the former, and track record, in the case of the latter. How does the team protect itself, while rewarding the player? How quickly does the player get his cash? How many years out are you guaranteeing? All those things make these complicated negotiations that go well beyond taking a cursory look at the dollar amounts a few other guys got.
Functionally, it’s not a big deal. But it will be what people go back to if there’s any sort of tumult over the summer, and it’ll be on the Jets to manage that. Now, with all that established, the Niners are still really, really good. So good that anything less than a return to the Super Bowl, with a core still right in that championship window, would be a disappointment. But I’d bet they’ll have more resistance in their division than they did last year. And if they slip a little, McVay’s crew is poised to take advantage.This group includes the rocketship of a reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year poised to take things to the moon . The No.
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