Tag: punt block

Cowboys’ punt-block prowess could force Packers to pick 4th-down poison

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys had one-third of the league’s punt blocks this season. That will give Green Bay just a little more to think about this Sunday.

There were just six blocked punts in the NFL during the 2023 regular season. The Cowboys were responsible for two of them, and they nearly had a third.

Special teams coordinator John Fassel hopes that will give the Packers just one more thing to think about when punter Daniel Whelan comes on to try to flip the field for Green Bay this Sunday at AT&T Stadium.

“There is a yin and yang on the rush and return, kind of working together,” Fassel told reporters at The Star this week.

Tight end Peyton Hendershot was the beneficiary this past Sunday, busting through the line of scrimmage on a Washington third-quarter fourth-down to block Tress Way’s punt and give the offense possession at the Commanders’ 9-yard-line. Dallas would add their fifth touchdown of the afternoon moments later.

It’s about creating mismatches, obviously. And if the Cowboys’ opponent is too focused on keeping their punter upright by adding a blocker at the line, it could mean giving speedy punt return man KaVontae Turpin extra room to maneuver forty-some yards downfield.

The Packers are already susceptible to a strong return game. Whelan is averaging a lackluster 46.2 yards per punt, a mark that places him 24th in the league. But factor in punt returns, and his per-punt net average drops to 39.4 yards, or 31st place.

So Green Bay will face a real decision on every fourth down.

“Some of those things do open up, potentially, the return game because there’s more of a focus on protection,” Fassel explained. “Having Turp back there, there’s a clearer emphasis on other teams trying to cover, so sometimes that opens up an opportunity to rush.”

Fassel is more than happy to make opponents pick their poison, especially with players on both ends of the equation able to turn any given punt into a huge momentum swing.

“There are some typical known rushers,” Fassel noted of his 2023 crew. “Dorance Armstrong is probably pretty well-known as a rusher. Even Sam [Williams] is well-known. For Peyton to get an opportunity to make a move and get a punt block was fantastic.”

As Fassel points out, Cowboys opponents have more than one capable rusher to contend with. It was Hendershot this past weekend; back in Week 8, it was defensive end Sam Williams, tacking two points onto the scoreboard with his block.

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Williams has developed a knack for the technique this season while playing on over two-thirds of Dallas’s special teams plays. He very nearly recorded a second blocked punt in the Week 15 loss to Buffalo. While he misjudged his leap (he arguably shouldn’t have left his feet at all) and was subsequently called for roughing, he came within inches of a game-changing play.

That miscue came to mind for Fassel on Sunday as he watched Hendershot’s block versus Washington, remembering a similar learning moment the tight end had in 2022.

“Hendershot, last year, we played the Bears,” Fassel recalled. “And it was probably the third quarter. He got cut loose on a punt rush and whiffed, almost like Sam did against Buffalo a couple weeks ago. And that has stuck with myself and Hendershot for, now, over a year. And we worked on how to finish, kind of like we’ve been working on with Sam. It was the exact same thing, you know; Peyton missed his just like Sam missed his. So we work on these things, on how to finish when you get through. So for him to just boom, all of a sudden- it was really a return call with a one-man rush, kind of deja vu. For him to get through and finish, man, that’s sometimes the hardest part.”

The hardest part for Green Bay this coming weekend in the wild-card round may be deciding whether to roll the dice against the electrifying Turpin… or defend against one of the best punt-blocking squads in football.

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Notre Dame blocks yet another punt: Twitter reacts to insane Irish special teams

It was already insane. This is light years beyond that at this point.

It’s remarkable how quickly Notre Dame has gone from being a place where the special teams philosophy appeared to be “just don’t screw up” to a place where opponent’s punts are must-watch television.  That’s the case for the Irish under special teams coordinator Brian Mason however on Saturday they blocked yet another opponent’s punt.

This was their seventh blocked punt of the season which extends the school record.  It was also their fifth-straight game blocking a punt.  Honestly, watching Notre Dame go after a punt is like it was as a Bears fan when Devin Hester was getting ready to return a kick.  You can’t turn away because there is a significant chance, not just a possibility, that something special is about to happen.

Here’s how the college football world reacted to the latest blocked punt by the Irish on Twitter today.

Cowboys’ Nahshon Wright on this week’s block recovery, ‘This time, it was behind the line’

Nahshon Wright had his hands on a blocked punt for the second straight week. This time, the ball bounced the rookie’s- and Dallas’s- way. | From @ToddBrock24f7

The Cowboys’ Week 10 game versus Atlanta was seen as a chance to make up for what went wrong the week before. But one key moment was practically an instant replay for rookie cornerback Nahshon Wright.

Last Sunday, Wright was the victim of a bad bounce and a seldom-seen rule on a blocked punt, inadvertently giving the ball back to Denver with a new set of downs. Seven days later, the Cowboys special teams unit broke through to block another punt, and the aptly-named third-round draft pick once again found himself in just the Wright place at just the Wright moment.

“Great play by D.A. [Dorance Armstrong, who made the block], and again, I was able to see it get blocked. This time, it was behind the line of scrimmage, going towards the end zone,” Wright told reporters after the decisive 43-3 win. “I just jumped on it.”

The 23-year-old out secured the ball in the end zone, giving him his first career fumble recovery and his first career touchdown all in the same moment.

“I made sure I got in the end zone,” Wright told reporters, adding that it was his first time scoring since his freshman year at Laney College, the junior community college he attended before transferring to Oregon State as a sophomore.

It seems like the simplest thing, grabbing a loose football. But funny things can happen when that oblong starts ricocheting off moving bodies and solid turf. Had the ball bounced just a little differently last week, Wright might have scored then, too.

“The ball was coming my way, and I’m at the line of scrimmage,” Wright said last Sunday after being unable to find the handle on a Week 9 punt blocked by Malik Turner. “I know shouldn’t have touched it, but I was trying to scoop and score and make a play.”

The Broncos recovered that ball, and since Wright had touched it beyond the line of scrimmage, Denver was awarded possession along with a new set of downs. And the early-third-quarter moment that might have turned the tide in the rout of Dallas merely prolonged the carnage.

“No fault at all,” Turner said then, after the 30-16 Week 9 loss. “It’s all on us, and we’ll be in that position again, and it will go our way next time.”

He had no idea the “next time” would come almost exactly 168 hours later- and to the same teammate- as the Falcons attempted to stop the bleeding by flipping the field, down 28-3 as the first half was set to expire.

Armstong, in his first start for the injured Randy Gregory, burst through the Atlanta line and got to punter Dustin Colquitt’s foot almost before the football did.

“That was my first one ever,” Armstrong said of the block, “so I was pretty excited, pretty surprised. But it felt good.”

Not as good as it felt for Wright as he saw a chance to atone for his previous muff, simply by doing what he’s been doing in practice.

“Just making sure I know exactly what I need to do,” Wright explained. “Coach Bones [special team coordinator John Fassel], he encouraged me to continue to try to make plays so that way, something like this today, I’m not afraid to go and try to make a play. It was great to be out there and make that play today.”

Wright’s recovery and score capped a huge day for the Cowboys secondary. Three different defensive backs intercepted a throw, and the group logged 10 passes defensed while holding Atlanta to just 131 air yards and keeping them out of the end zone as the Cowboys completed a blowout win of their own.

“We talk about our group; we want to be a special group, on special teams or whenever we’re out there on the field. The DB’s are going to go out and represent what we stand for. I was happy for [Wright],” cornerback Jourdan Lewis said. “He stayed in the moment, he made the play. He wasn’t worried about last week. He was just worried about making the play.”

For Wright, though, that one play wasn’t just another rep.

“That might be up there. It felt good to get in the end zone.”

It had to feel even better since he had to wait a week to get there.

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Cowboys’ John Fassel deflects criticism for terrible punt block call

Fassel was unapologetic in explaining his decision to bring the house at an odd time Sunday; even Jerry Jones suggested it was too risky. | From @ToddBrock24f7

In the end, it cost the Cowboys nothing more than some time. Granted, with a little more time in that situation, maybe Dak Prescott puts together a touchdown drive to close out the half. Maybe the nail-biting back-and-forth at the end and the sketchy clock management and the 56-yard field goal wouldn’t have been necessary; who can say?

But, man, if that botched blocked punt attempt didn’t feel like a bad idea in the moment. Even now, days after the game and despite sneaking out of Los Angeles with a win, the various reactions and explanations for the odd play call aren’t sitting well with fans. Or the team owner.

Special teams coordinator John Fassel may have been the architect behind last season’s famous “watermelon” kick, but head-scratchers like last Thanksgiving’s abysmal fake punt and Sunday’s penalty-inducing punt block are making many in Cowboys Nation wonder how long the team can survive letting “Bones” roll recklessly unchecked in the Dallas gameplan.

The Chargers had gotten to the Dallas 36 with three minutes to play before the end of the first half. An offensive holding call backed them up 10. Keanu Neal stopped a shot pass for a one-yard loss. Leighton Vander Esch sacked Justin Herbert for seven more yards. It was suddenly 4th down and 20, with the ball just a few yards past the midfield stripe. Big win for the defense.

Dallas was about to get the ball back with two minutes to go, two timeouts for Prescott and Co. to work with, and a golden opportunity to add to a three-point lead going into intermission.

When John Fassel decided to bring the house.

Afterward, Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy reviewed the various options for that or any punt play.

“Is it a punt block, is it a punt rush, or is it a return?” McCarthy explained after the game. “Sometimes you have calls that have a combination of both. We had a pick stunt on there, and the object was to drive the personal protector into the punter, because the way they were picking it up.”

But it was rookie defensive end Azur Kamara that ended up in punter Ty Long’s lap, drawing a yellow flag. Los Angeles retained possession, earned a new set of downs, and gained 15 yards.

Thankfully, they went on to miss a field goal attempt nine plays later. The Cowboys had only three seconds left, only time enough for one valiant-but-failed desperation play. No harm, no foul.

Except there had been a foul. A silly one that kept the game closer than it might have been otherwise, caused by a risk that didn’t need to be taken.

And Fassel’s explanation for it during a Monday press conference was downright surreal.

“The thought process was: I think Cowboys fans aren’t the play-it-safe type. So I was going to give them what they wanted, come after their ass on the punt rush. So I hope they’re happy with it.”

That simply can’t be what Fassel meant in a literal sense. Obviously he’s not the play-it-safe-type, but it would be the ultimate negligence for a 47-year-old veteran coordinator to call actual plays in the middle of an NFL game according to what he thinks the fans might like to see.

Fassel didn’t crack so much as a smile when he said it. It’s quite possible he believed the fanbase would truly rally around his decision to bring a Sherman tank to a spitwad fight.

“I think the only way to block a punt is to rush the punt,” he explained. “There’s been a few times, you rough them.”

Fassel has a reputation for being quirky. Just look at his super-detailed vasectomy talk with players during Hard Knocks. He emcees a team-bonding game of Jeopardy! during training camp. He has a somewhat awkward way about him, he likes to tell goofy stories, he loves the guys he loves on his special teams units… and he is unafraid to pull out a drawn-up-in-the-dirt schoolyard play at apparently any given moment.

But even team owner and famed wildcatter Jerry Jones didn’t sound like he was on board with that 4th-and-20 jailbreak rush when he spoke on-air with 105.3 The Fan Tuesday morning.

“To be very candid with you, I’m a little more conservative,” Jones said. “I really like to choose my spots on taking those kind of risks. You take a risk every time you try to block a punt.”

Fassel agreed with that sentiment, at least.

“Anytime you rush the punt, there’s a risk,” he admitted. “But last week, Pittsburgh was up by three points in the fourth quarter, and they rushed the punt and blocked it and ran it in for a touchdown. So the reward is high; the risk is high.”

Fassel reiterated to reporters that being aggressive was part of the plan going into the contest. Then he argued in almost the same breath that the flag thrown on Kamara should have been picked up.

“We came after him,” Fassel said. “It was kind of the mindset going into the game: we’re going to come after this football. And you can sure debate everything, but I’m still not so sure we actually roughed him.”

“I didn’t get an actual jersey number because it was a train wreck right there at the block spot,” Fassel continued. “But what I got on film was that their No. 40 hooked Kamara and pulled him back into the punter. You could make a great case it was holding, or that the punter hit his own blocker. But there was a lot of bodies in that pile. Our goal was to come after him.”

“I think, going into the game, you’ve got a game plan and you never anticipate that, ‘Oh, I didn’t want to pull the trigger because I’m worried about roughing the punter,'” Fassel went on. “Anytime you rush, you’re coming after the football. I could go to the tape and we could sit down and watch it and tell me if it’s roughing. I’m biased. But I think the TV copy shows a pretty good picture of maybe something else.”

Fassel told media members that he planned to have the league review the call.

“Yeah, I’ll be interested to see what they say. But like I said, there was a lot of bodies there.”

Fassel may have a point; the penalty looks plenty questionable. What doesn’t sit well, though, is not whether officials should have waved off the penalty, but whether someone on the Cowboys sideline should have waved off the play call to swarm the punter in the first place. Fassel says ordering the punt rush was his decision alone, and he believes McCarthy was comfortable with Fassel rolling the dice in that situation.

“That’s a good question. I think I would say yes… with an asterisk,” he answered. “I think he was okay with us following the game plan and coming after him. He was probably upset that we roughed them, or that they called roughing.”

But Fassel makes no apologies for the aggressive play.

“Our goal was to come after it, and you could absolutely second-guess it, and I’m okay with that. But part of our game plan was to come after them with a real aggressive mindset, give the Cowboys fans some of what they were looking for.”

Had he been able to stop and take a poll in the moment, what most Cowboys fans would have been looking for on 4th-and-20 was putting the ball back in Prescott’s hands with two minutes to play and a pair of timeouts in his pocket.

Fassel’s blind allegiance to trying wacky special teams plays out of nowhere has become part of his schtick. But McCarthy’s blind allegiance to letting his special teams coordinator go rogue is definitely wearing on the fans that Fassel claims to be trying to please.

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