The Kansas City Chiefs are heading into Week 3 of the season with some parts of their system to fix. A facet of the team that could use improvement is special teams in the return game.
Chiefs special teams coordinator Dave Toub has sorted multiple options over the last two years at punt returner. The Chiefs’ current punt returner, Richie James, notably fumbled away an opportunity in the first half of last Sunday’s victory in Jacksonville. Toub addressed the mishap during his Thursday press conference with reporters.
“I think he thought he was, you know, and I’m speaking for him, but I think he thought he was in a perfect position to catch it,” Toub explained. “I mean, could you watch the tape and you can really, you know, the TV copy, you can see his eyes like he was looking at the ball. It wasn’t like he was looking at the coverage or anything.
“He thought he was looking at the ball. And then also it kind of moved late on him and obviously, you know, didn’t work out like we want it to but that, you know, he was a he’s a good catcher, you know, and that was an oddball. That was a thing that, you know, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem going forward. And we just need him to get better.”
James suffered an injury in Jacksonville and hasn’t practiced, creating doubt about his availability against the Bears. Toub explained the difficulties of becoming a good punt returner and hinted at what he is looking for in a player at the position.
“It’s way different,” Toub continued. “It’s way different catching a real punt and catching a punt for jugs totally different, like the jugs (machine) will give you the perfect turnover every time upon that you’re gonna get the crazy pump, you know, the crazy turn rotation of the football and the wind affects it differently.
“So it’s harder to catch a real punt. So that’s why we try every time we have a chance to catch Tommy’s (Townsend) punt. So we want to do that as much as we can. But you can’t have Tommy; he can’t; he’s not a human juggs machine. So you can only get so many.”