The Cowboys announced today that they have fired special teams coach Bruce Read. Others will say that Wade Phillips and Jason Garrett are more important targets for firing, but frankly, no area of this team has been as bad as special teams coverage under Read in the past two seasons.
The stats do not quite show how bad it has been. In several games, the special teams coverage was okay, but far too many times, the coverage broke down at the absolute worst of times. Teams routinely brought kickoffs past the 30 and beyond, and punt returners often found seams for 20 or 30 yard returns.
As far as the stats, here are a few:
Kickoffs and Kickoff Coverage
Nick Folk had 75 kickoffs in 2008 but not a single touchback. He was the only regular kickoff specialist who did not have a touchback. In fact, the only other kicker who came close to Folk was John Carney of the Giants, who had three touchbacks on 79 kickoffs.
Folk’s 60.5-yard-per-kickoff average third worst among regular kickoff specialists. Only Carney (60.4) and Kansas City’s Connor Barth (58.6) were worse.
Punting and Punt Coverage
Read gets a bit of a pass in the punting game thanks to Mat McBriar’s injury early in the season, but the coverage wasn’t great with either McBriar or Sam Paulescu. Paulescu only played in 10 games, yet the return yards the Cowboys gave up in those ten games alone (246 yards on 21 returns) was more than regular punters from 21 other teams.
I’ll be the first to admit Bruce Read needed to go and should have gone sooner, but it’s still not enough. By keeping Wade Phillips as head coach Jerry Jones has doomed this team to a losing record next year. Mark my words.
I know this will never happen, but I think until Jerry hires a real GM, the Cowboys will never again be consistently successful.
The problem with going 13-3 like we did last year, is that it gives Jerry the illusion that he knows what he’s doing, and we are doomed to mediocrity as long as he thinks he can do the job.
I know Jerry wants to win, but he’s also very stubborn and not willing to admit he’s not the “football guy” he thinks he is. The question is, does his will to win outweigh his stubbornness to admit he’s not the guy?
I doubt it, so we will continue to struggle for the foreseeable future, regardless of who the next head coach is.
And speaking of that: if I were Bill Cowher and Jerry approached me, the first thing I’d do is pick up the phone and talk to Bill Parcells. What do you think Parcells would tell Cowher about working for Jerry?
Fred, I completely concur.
I was all for firing Chan Gailey, Dave Campo, and even Bill Parcells, each time thinking that getting rid of them was the right answer to moving forward. But the organization just keeps stumbling forward. We’ve had dumb draft picks, dumb draft trades, and overpaid “stars” who may be talented individuals but who are not team players. Jerry makes incredible statements such as THIS team is the most talented he’s had or THIS team has the best coaching staff he’s ever had. B.S. on all fronts. I think the real personnel changes need to come higher than head coach, but it just isn’t going to happen.
While I agree that the coverage is about as porous as the grand canyon I’m not sure how you can blame the coach for Folk not being able to kick the ball into the endzone. That’s more of a reflection on Folk then anyone. One could argue that had Folk of kicked a few more into the endzone then maybe we wouldnt have to see those returns.
I also disagree that he gets a pass on the punting game. You could have had Jesus punting the ball but if you can’t stop the other team on the run back you can’t do crap.
All and all the guy should have been fired weeks ago, months ago even. I’m not sure the next guy will get much different results unless the team starts showing some heart. to think we complain about the stars so much and these squads are both made up of subs and backups and they didn’t even show up. No sense of pride what so ever.
Jon: I have read that Read’s kickoff strategy involved instructions to Folk to kick into the corners rather than to try to kick into the end zone. It may very well be the case, though, that his leg strength on kickoffs is not enough to get those touchbacks.
In the game I saw live, what I saw on a few of the returns was a bunch of arm tackling. On one of the punt returns in the second half, the Ravens got more than 20 yards on a return when the returner made one juke to his right and the first Cowboy there completely ran by him. That set up the first Baltimore touchdown.