The art of fielding punts

[blackbart]

This is obviously not an easy task even for well trained professional football players. Looking up into the sun on occasion, or dome which ever the case judging the speed of the guys coming at you with bad intent and trying to first catch the ball and second hold onto to it and hopefully advance it from time to time is all a very specialized skillset.

TA obviously has a great start at providing the Rams with a guy that can get this done but there is one glaring problem that I would like to see him improve on. That is catching everything he can instead of letting them drop. If it looks like he isn't going to be able to advance the ball use the fair catch to protect yourself and catch the ball on the fly. It will give the Rams better field position and on the occasion when someone interferes with the catch, good or great field position. Letting it hit the ground can only result in bad things.

One simple thing that can help this team in the battle for field position.

 

[-X-]

Honestly, I thought he could have done a better job of NOT letting the ball hit the ground and roll last night. I thought there were a few times where he could have run up and fair caught the ball instead of letting it bounce. All in all, I'm not too concerned (at this point) about his performance on special teams. I know a few people don't like how he hesitates right after he catches the ball, but I can see his mind working when he does that. He's looking for one opportunity, and his acceleration from zero to haul-ass is incredible. He can actually get away with that stuff.

 

[blackbart]

I actually like the hesitation as you said his acceleration is incredible and he seems to have great vision to pick a the best spot to try and hit the hole. It also seems in some cases that the defenders see that and relax for a split second, bad idea when he has the ball.