Might as well give Hyde a shot at it since nobody else has worked this season to date.

He's earned it.

Nixon should be in the mix too. Didn't he run a 4.2?

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I think the biggest thing that is hurting our KO returns is the indecision and generally poor decisions by the returners. There are too many kicks where he hesitates or stutter steps before bringing it out. and too many where he should simply not bring it out.

Here is another one of my fascinating time wasting analysese. This time of the KO returns.

In 7 games the opposing team kicked the ball off to us a total of 35 times

12 were touchbacks out of the endzone.

5 were caught and downed in the endzone (all 5 of these were by Ross and they were caught 7 yards deep, -8,-6,-8,-9)

1 went out of bounds on the 1 which gave us the ball on our 40. (Ross made the heads up play on this one.

2 were onside kicks that we recovered

1 was an onside kick that they recovered but a penalty forced a re-kick

2 were onside kicks recovered by them but illegal touching penalties gave us the ball (1 of these was the rekick mentioned above.

This leaves us with 12 kicks that were returned.

7 of these were kicks that had to be returned (short of the goal line)

1 of these was Ross muff.

the six other resulted in the following
17 yd ret to the 22 Yd Ln Ross
14 yd R 17 YL Ross
10 yd R 13 YL Cobb
21 yd R 21 YL Ross
19 yd R 31 YL Kuhn
26 yd R 26 YL Franklin.

5 were kicked into the endzone but brought out

2 yds deep 10 yd R 8 YL Ross
4 yd deep 13 yd R 9YL Ross
3 yd deep 19 yd R 16 YL Hill
8 yd deep 18 yd R 10 YL Franklin
5 yd deep 16 yd R 11 YL Franklin

So again what does all this mean (besides me having too much time again, which I really don't this time. I am putting something rather important off to do this so I hope you all appreciate it.)

My observations:

First of all besides his Muff it seems to me that Ross may have actually made the best decisions on returning the ball Anything more than 5 yards deep he downed. Of the 5 total brought out though his 2 were the shortest.

On 29 kickoffs (not counting the onsides kicks and the OOB kick) We started outside our 20 yard line 4 times (22, 21, 31, 26) All of these came on short kicks and on 2 of the short kicks we still started inside our 20.

on 5 kicks brought out of the endzone we never made it to the 20.

The good news, we have only committed 1 penalty on a KR and that was in week 1.

Our longest return was 26 yards

We only had 2 returns over 20 yards (26, 21) and both of these were on returns that had to be made.

My conclusion: Our kickoff return team sucks. I don't know if it is the return man or the rest of the team, probably a combination of the two, but one thing is for sure it sucks.

My recommendations

First and most likely option. Put someone else back there, anyone else. It would be difficult for anyone to do any worse that what we have already seen.

Second, though this would be my preferred option it is also highly unlikely, don't let the opposing team score any more. I could live with these averages if we only had to return 9 more kicks all year.

When Ross is making the best decisions of all your KO returners, look to the ST coach. lol

If it was just ONE dude shitting himself in those situations, maybe write it off as the player.

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Franklin ain't ready. Anything to keep it out of his hands.

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No relevancy to the Packers now, but Ross had a good game returning both kickoffs and punts last week for Detroit.

I really don't like Franklin back there, in fact I'm liking Franklin less and less in general. Hyde is excellent on punts because he is "safe". It's a bonus if he can get a big one occasionally, but I credit good blocking and poor punt coverage more for his big return. He would probably be a safe kickoff returner too, just not real fast.

I also hope they give Nixon a chance and/or that guy on the practice squad who was so great last year in college. Even Harper might be a possibility.

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Give it to Hyde but under the following rules. If the ball is in the endzone. Take the touchback and start at the 20. If it is short, catch it and move your ass up field. At least get to the 20.

The majority of time, there is a good kick, blocking is the main reason. The returner usually beats 1,2 or maybe 3 guys himself. Other than that, either the defenders are not in their lanes or the blockers handle them.

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