With Punters Leading Way, Patriots Special Teams Have Been Awful

Statistically, the Patriots in 2021 had their worst campaign on special teams in the Bill Belichick era. It was a jarringly poor performance from a unit that typically is among the NFL’s best.

Well, this season’s been even worse — by a lot.

In 2020, New England’s special teams finished first in Football Outsiders’ DVOA rankings, which largely functions as football’s equivalent of baseball’s wins-above-replacement metric. It’s one of the best tools for measuring the overall effectiveness and efficiency of a team’s performance on offense, defense or special teams.

The strong showing in 2020 was especially encouraging considering it was Cam Achord’s first as special teams coordinator. Any concerns about a drop-off after the exit of Joe Judge, who coached Patriots special teams from 2012 through 2019, largely disappeared.

However, in 2021, Patriots special teams finished 18th in DVOA, the lowest during Belichick’s tenure. In the previous 21 seasons, New England never finished lower than 16th and finished in the top 10 a stunning 16 times.

Entering Week 18, Patriots special teams rank 27th in DVOA. Oh, and the group ranks 29th in weighted DVOA, which puts a greater emphasis on performances in games later in the season. So, New England’s special teams unit has gotten worse as the season has progressed.

In fact, according to Greg Bedard of Boston Sports Journal, Patriots special teams have the second-worst DVOA since Week 11, with only the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ranking worse.

So, what’s the deal? The Patriots have one of the league’s highest-paid punters, one of the best field goal kickers, a legendary gunner and another who’s playing at a Pro Bowl level, and a dynamic return specialist. How can New England’s special teams be this bad?

It mostly comes down to penalties, punts and kickoffs.

Through 17 weeks, the Patriots committed the sixth most penalties on special teams. You basically can bank on a least two bad special teams penalties per game, with last Sunday’s terrible running-into-the-kicker penalty the latest example.

The Patriots have endured a truly disappointing season from their punters. Jake Bailey, who landed a fat contract extension during the summer, was awful through the first nine weeks before suffering a back injury. He hasn’t played since, and replacement Michael Palardy has been even worse.

New England’s 10 touchbacks on punts are the most in the NFL. Its average for net punt yards is 35.7, easily the lowest in the NFL.

If you look at the increasingly popular “expected points added” (EPA) metric, Bailey and Palardy have been the two worst punters in football.

As far as kickoffs, the Patriots were fine before Bailey got injured. The veteran forced touchbacks on 63.6% of his kickoff attempts through Week 9. Kickoffs basically weren’t an issue, even though the coverage occasionally had problems.

From that point forward, it’s been a disaster.

Since the start of Week 10, New England has forced just three touchbacks on kickoffs, by far the fewest in the NFL. In that same timeframe, the Dallas Cowboys have forced a league-leading 37 touchbacks.

For the entire season, the Patriots have generated the third-fewest kickoff touchbacks in football.

Palardy, Nick Folk and practice squad kicker Tristan Vizcaino all have been given opportunities, and all have struggled. As Minnesota Vikings returner Kene Nwangwu proved in Week 12, bad things can happen when the Patriots cover kick returns.

Obviously, special teams aren’t what most fans complain about when they criticize the 2022 Patriots. New England’s anemic offense and fool’s-gold defense rightfully get most of the hate.

But when you’re a middling 8-8 team like the Patriots, games can be won and lost on the margins. They’ve been losing those kinds of battles all season — with special teams leading the way.