Bucs Should Thank Payton For His Stupidity
December 29th, 2009OK, last post about the Bucs upset over the Saints from Joe.
Joe had to snicker when the Bucs came from behind to beat the Saints in overtime. That’s because it seems the Bucs bring out the stupidity in Sean Payton when the two teams play in the Big Easy.
Anyone remember when Payton, with a lead late against the Bucs, tried a reverse deep in his own territory which resulted in a fumble, which the Bucs recovered leading to a King of Turds touchdown and a Bucs win?
Yep. Dumb.
Well, Payton got dumb again Sunday, though this time on special teams.
Just over two minutes left and the Saints had a touchdown lead. Fourth down punt. Anyone with a piece of a brain would have punted the ball out of bounds.
Can’t return a punt that is out of bounds.
Instead, Payton decides to test Michael Spurlock, who already holds a Bucs record for a return. Spurlock takes the punt back 77-yards. Tie ballgame.
It always amazes Joe how often special teams coaches want to test punt returners. Sure, a turnover is great. But how often are there turnovers compared to a good run back that either scores or sets up a score?
You can’t return a punt when it’s out of bounds.
Joe hopes as long as Payton — who Joe went to college with — never realizes this until he retires.
December 29th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Joe, I’m no Saints/Payton fan and my only question about this report is:
How do you know Sean made that call? Could it have been his special teams coach that made the call and Sean trusted him to make the right decision? or maybe the punter tried to kick it out of bounds and get max distance too and just didn’t get it where he wanted it exactly. You’re making this out to be an exact science and it isn’t. I would further go to say that Sean Payton has to be one of the top 3 offensive minds in the NFL, and pretty darn good head coach to boot. I think you’re picking on the wrong head coach here. I would trade 100 each of every coach on the Bucs for 1 Sean Payton. Think about it Joe.
December 30th, 2009 at 12:34 am
Sean Payton has a tendancy to get cute and it usually costs him.
December 30th, 2009 at 5:12 am
Yeah this article assumes a lot about the Saints inner punt workings. Punters also can try to hard to punt out of bounds and that can lead to shanks. Out of bounds punts can also give up distance. Given the Bucs red zone performance of late I certainly would have felt my D could hold them out of the EZ.
Does the NO punt coverage team allow TD’s often? If yes then your argument holds water, if No then…?
I enjoy bashing Payton as much as the next guy but its to simplistic to say, punt it out of bounds so it can’t be returned. The % says punt it deep as most punts are not returned all the way.
Also so what Spurlock had a KO return -once, that is a totally different type of blocking and return style.
December 30th, 2009 at 6:37 am
but it got the job done