Can’t Sleep on Special Teams

Unlike most of the other major sports in the world that consist of a team playing offense and defense, football has a third element of the game called special teams, which consists of the transition between defense to offense or offense to defense and kicking extra points and field goals. Even though the media does not stress special teams as a prime aspect of the game, it is still extremely important and can sometimes mean the difference between winning and losing. There are many times that a field goal kicker can win or loss a game for a team, and the special teams on kick-off and punt returns are vital in determining field position.

Under this regime the Dolphins’ special teams have been a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, sometimes winning games with last-second made field goals, or blocking punts in the end-zone in the last second of last year’s Viking game to seal a late victory. But then they have games in Buffalo where they allow 102 yards kick off return for touchdowns, or Sturgis missing crucial field goal kicks.

In net punting yards Miami was near the bottom of the league ranked 25^th worst at 39.6 yards, but they were ranked 11^th best in yards per punt at 46.3 yards, which shows that their punter was doing his job, but the punt coverage unit was not making the immediate tackle. In addition, Miami allowed 1 punt to be blocked, however, they impressively blocked 3 punts against their opponents, which was second-best in the league.

In kickoff returns Miami was ranked 6^th best in yards per kickoff at 26.4, and 0 touchdowns, but defending the kickoff they were 5^th worst allowing 26.9 yards per kickoff, and allowed 1 touchdown. It’s great that Miami was productive returning kickoffs, but all that positive production gets washed out when they have issues defending kickoffs. Learn more about the pay per head bookie service sites like AcePerHead.com.

Lastly, but very important is the field goal unit, and unfortunately for Miami, Sturgis has not been very good. Last year he only made 29 field goals out of 37 attempts, for a 78.1% success rate, and was ranked 27^th worst in the league. Sturgis was once again injured during mini-camp, so most fans would not wager on him to improve that much from his previous season performance. Miami would be wise to be on the lookout for veteran kickers that can challenge Sturgis for the starting job. (Jay Feely is still available)

Miami did some things well last year on special teams, but they also did some things poorly, obviously the key for Miami is to improve on their weaknesses and continue to excel at their strengths, however, that is a lot easier said than done. Miami needs players like Michael Thomas, Don Jones, Kelvin Sheppard, Spencer Paysinger, Brice McCain, Zack Bowman, Bobby McCain, Tony Lippett, Ced Thompson, and Jay Ajayi to contribute on special teams. The Dolphins lost two key contributors to free agency in Jason Trusnik and Jonathan Freeney so some of these newcomers need to step up and perform on special teams. Special teams are not a time to relax, but a time to change the momentum of the game in one’s favor. Playoff teams play well on special teams, and Miami needs to cut down on the mental mistakes in this part of their game if they want to have a playoff-caliber special teams unit.

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