Brandon Tate On Pace To Shatter Franchise Punt Return Records

I don’t think Tate is “getting” anything. In fact, quite the opposite. You already mention his habit of misreading punts…letting them bounce when he shouldn’t and vice versa. One punt yesterday drove me NUTS.

Forget when in the game it was, first half. Colts were backed up pretty deep and punted. not a ton of hangtime, the punt was coming down around the Bengals 30. Tate was right in position, and for some unknown reason decides to let it bounce. That, all by itself, is just moronic. But it got worse. The ball takes a big Indianapolis bounce and, as the Colts defenders begin to get close to down it, Tate starts RUNNING ALONG SIDE the bouncing ball. He almost looked like a punt defender standing DIRECTLY over the ball watching it roll to decide when to grab it. Even when the Colts defenders swarmed around him he STILL kept walking with it. Finally, one of the Colts actually noticed and did the smart thing – shoved him hoping he’d accidentally touch the thing. He almost did, too, except a split second before another one of them grabbed the ball to down it.

My eyes were actually coming out of my head during that play. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. In the game thread I said that I honestly don’t know if Tate knows the rules of the punt game. As in maybe no one explained to him what a touchback was or that once touched a ball is live. As far-fetched as that sounds, this is the first time in his career he’s returned punts unless he ever did it in high school. I’d laugh at that theory if I hadn’t seen this one play yesterday, but now I’m not so sure. I hope Simmons has a LOOOOOOOOOONG chat with him today and that play doesn’t get lost because of one decent return. (I say “decent” because, with Peerman’s block, I really believe an above average returner could have run that one back for a TD. When he broke free I thought he was going to the house for sure. Only getting 30 yards out of it was a disappointment.)

The only thing I saw was a body wearing the 25 being murdered. Tate could have bring the ball back to the endzone. It wouldn’t be more fun than Peerman’s block.

Sure looked like he launched himself. If this would have been Hines Ward would the reaction be as positive?

When Cosby set the 474 mark it was on 40 attempts. That’s an average of 11.85 yards per attempt.

593 at 56 attemps is an average of 10.59 yards per carry.

The combo of an excellent defense and a string of marginal opponents have meant that he’s returning more often, not that he’s returning better.

If the offense sucked and Huber was making 100 punts per season we wouldn’t point out the fact that he’d set a punting yardage record.

And if Cosby were returning punts this season at the11.85 average, he’d end up with 56 attempts for 663 yards, 70 more than Tate

Tate was a step down from Cosby, period.

… the fact that he seems to be losing punt return snaps to Clements?

Why Clements? I don’t know. I’d love to see Babyhawk in there at some point.

I cringed every time Ratliff touched the ball, and I do the same with Tate. North. And. South. Not only does he obviously have difficulty understanding the logistics of the punt game, he also can’t run the darn ball if he does decide to return it. The only reason he’ll break any records is due to the number of punts our defense forces.

Punt return records getting smashed while we play NFC West and after we finished at the bottom of our division last year…coincidence? Or is Tate a great returner?

21 of his 22 returns have been this year.

He will be fine. It’s just going to take some time. Last year Cosby had a 7.5 yard average, which was below average. Let’s give him a few more games before we get our pitch forks out.