The New England Patriots have a wealth of kick returners on their roster, but only a small fraction of those players also are experienced at returning punts.
With punt return now an area of need for the Patriots following season-ending injuries to Julian Edelman and Cyrus Jones, head coach Bill Belichick was asked during his Friday afternoon conference call why more returners don’t pull double duty.
“That’s a good question,” Belichick said. “Of course, the easy answer is if one guy does both, then that makes it a lot easier, and it also makes the overall roster discussion a lot easier.”
Jones was one such player, and he was expected to enter the regular season as New England’s primary kick and punt returner before he went down with a reported torn ACL during Thursday’s preseason finale. Danny Amendola is the team’s only remaining dual-threat return man, as D.J. Foster, Dion Lewis, James White, Matthew Slater and Devin McCourty all stick to kickoffs only.
Belichick, a noted special teams aficionado, spent close to five minutes Friday breaking down the differences between the two positions. In a nutshell, punt returning requires much quicker decision-making, plus the ability to catch the ball in heavy traffic.
“Sometimes you only have a yard or 2 or a couple of yards to get into space, make a guy miss, break a tackle, whereas the kickoff is much more of a build-up play,” the coach said. “Because they’re so different, a lot of time you don’t have the same player doing both.”
It remains to be seen how the Patriots will handle punt returns with Edelman and Jones unavailable. They could roll with Amendola (not the most desirable option given the 31-year-old’s injury history), thrust a young player like Foster or rookie Will Likely into that role or acquire a player from outside the organization, either by scooping up one of the hundreds who will fall victim to roster cuts this weekend or by swinging a trade for a more established talent.
Asked how he’d feel about dedicating a roster spot to a player who only would contribute as a punt returner, Belichick responded by stressing the importance of the position.
“Well, I’d say the ball-handling is critical,” he said. “It’s like the long snapper. How many plays is the long snapper in for a game? Call it 10? I don’t know. Somewhere in that neighborhood — eight to 10. Field goals, punts and extra points. But everybody carries a long snapper.
“Between the kick returns and the punt returns, (a return man might play) maybe a couple less than that. But I’d say the difficulty of those jobs and the importance of them — poor ball-handling, there’s not much that will lose a game quicker than that. So I think it’s a high priority for every (team). It certainly is for us. So we’ll have to see how it turns out, but it’s not an afterthought at all. It’s a priority item.”
Thumbnail photo via David Butler II/USA TODAY Sports Images
