Box_O_Rocks

At the beginning of the season I was disgruntled with Hanson's touchbacks and kicks out of bounds. Certainly the parade of punters visiting lent some credance to that thinking, but before too long I reassessed that and pondered whether Hanson wasn't actually putting the ball where BB wanted it, no return. I can't call Hanson's season a failure. I do like those two kids, I just wonder how quickly they get the kicks off compared to NFL standards and if Gano in particular has any kicking experience to prepare him for NE weather?

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patchick

Good point, Hanson had only 22% of his punts returned, a mighty low number.

And heck, why are we even discussing punters when the Patriots had the #1 ranked punter in the league this year?
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VJCPatriot

Hanson was 24th in net punt yardage and 20th in kicks within the 20, aka coffin punts. He also fails the eye test and has shanked many a kick in New England. Let's not mince words, he's terrible.

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As far as OLB goes... how does Suggs look? I know we struck out with Colvin and Thomas could be better... but 3rd times a charm in that department?

Because BB won't pay Cassel 14M per year to be a punter?

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LuthierJr

I know we don't need another RB, but I like Sproles. He'd be a good kevin faulk replacement and ST ace.

Box_O_Rocks

Sure to be the new Rick-rolled gag. :banned:

Out of the players with 20+ yd returns tied for #15 or better, NE played against 15 of 23 (counting division opponent's players twice). Hanson had a middling net average, but he only had 158 total return yards - amongst Punters with 40 or more punts that placed him #4. Hard to fault that season.

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Box_O_Rocks

Define "shank."

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DaBruinz

Patchick - a couple of corrections.

1) Adam Podlesh was drafted by the Jaguars last year. Draft sites were split over him and Daniel Sepulveda as to who was #1. He was injured this year during game 12 and had to be placed on the IR.

2) Ryan Plackemeier, who was drafted by the Seahawks in 2006 and was ranked as the top Punter, was released by them in week 1 of 2008 and picked up by the Redskins between weeks 9 and 10. Plackemeier was ranked 14th in net average in 2006.

NFL Stats: by Player Category

3) Daniel Sepulveda was ranked 11th in net average last year with a 37.9 net punt avg in 2007. Sepulveda is still in the league. However, he tore his ACL during training the 1st week of the Steelers 2008 training camp.

NFL Stats: by Player Category

DaBruinz

Why should we mince words when we can just be ignorant and compare the total number of punts inside the 20 and ignore the fact that someone like Brad Maynard, who had 40 of them, also had 96 punts. Compared to Hanson's 49. Because if we were too look at it from a % stand point we'd have to see that Maynard had 41.67% or his punts inside the 20 compared to 38.78% of Hanson's.

Or that only 2.4 yards of Net Average seperated the 10th place punter from the 20th place punter.

Lets ignore that Hanson had fewer punts returned this year than last year (11 this year compared to 14 last year). Or that the number of punts he made that were Fair Caught went from 8 to 13. Or that the number of punts he put inside the 20 went up from 13 to 19. Or that Hanson's 11 returned punts is the fewest in number and the lowest % of any punter with 40 or more punts.

Lets just arbitrarily focus on Net Punt average and punts inside the 20 without focusing on anything else. Because its the only way our ignorant point gets proven.

Hanson isn't the best punter in the world by any stretch of the imagination. But he's not as bad as you'd have people believe.

OH, by the way, a Coffin Corner Kick is not a kick inside the 20 as you want people to believe. A coffin corner kick is a punt that is aimed to go out of bounds between the 5 yard line and the goal line. A 15 yard difference there.

DaBruinz

Its amazing how you re-write history. Yes, the Pats struck out with Colvin because he suffered a Career threatening injury that there is no physical training that one can do to prevent such an injury and because that injury kept him from putting up 20 sacks a year.. They struck out with Colvin because all he did was come back from said injury, modified his game and became a solid and above average OLB who could stop the run and drop into coverage (his two weakest spots coming from the Bears).

Yes, Thomas could be better. He's played 3 different positions with the Pats since coming here, but he should still have put up double digit sacks. If you listen to VJC that is. It doesn't matter that he was coming out of a system where he was more of a rover because the Ravens had him line up all over the place. It doesn't matter that the Ravens ran a single gap system and not a 2 gap system the way the Pats do. It doesn't matter that Thomas was playing ILB full-time for the first 9 games of the season. A position that he only had played sparingly with the Ravens.

Nope. NONE of that matters. What matters is that VJC's expectations weren't met so they are failures....

Sorry, but it would seem that the issue here is your expectations, not the player's performance.

dryheat44

Wouldn't it be great if we could franchise him based on the punter number? Can't our "evil genius" head coach figure out a way to do that?

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