Bumped from the diaries. Hat tip to steelerark for the diary. I'm including his original text, than adding a few thoughts of my own at the end.
I have said for years now that Jeff Reed and his predecessor, Norm Johnson, have been consistently hurting our team with poor field position due to crappy KO's. Recently, someone mentioned that in the Cleveland game, Reed looked so much better, and I responded jokingly that he probably had more touchbacks on Sunday than all last year combined. Well, it turns out that I was close.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07254/816467-66.stm
Wow. He had four!!! 4 touchbacks in an entire season!!! That is unbelievable. 5% of his kicks. Sheesh. The rest of the story is pretty sweet, I am actually excited about our sp teams and continue to be as the days go by.
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4 Touchbacks for the entire season is not going to cut it. Period. It may not seem like much on the surface, but starting from the 30 yard line as opposed to the 20 yard line adds up over the course of the season. It may just lead to a handful more FGs, and a sample of those FGs may not directly effect the outcome of any particular game, but the bottom line is you're putting yourself behind the 8-ball over the course of the season if you continually give your opponents an extra 10-15 yards of field position. I'm pleased we seem to be emphasizing the little things more under Coach Tomlin, and I'm thrilled that every individual on our team seems to be practicing and performing as if his job is on the line. Like datruth4life said in his Monday recap, compeition seems to be king under Tomlin.