For example, fake punts. I’ve been noticing lately on punts in football that everyone often will start running down the field BEFORE the punter has kicked the ball, actually all turning their backs on him in a lot of cases. All he would need to do is slap the ball hard to mimic the sound of an actual punt and he could just take a casual stroll for the first down. At the very least you’d think the offensive coordinator would notice this stuff and tell the punter than he can run the fake if they do it again. And, at the very very least, it would make the opposition play actual punts more honestly, thus giving an advantage to the coverage. But nope, the number of fake punts in the NFL across the league in one year can probably be counted on one hand.
1- Go for it on fourth down every time you’re inside the other team’s 40. Totally useless to punt- if you go for it and fail you spot the other team 20 yards, big whoop.
2- When left handed pull hitters come up and face a shifted infield where the third baseman is where the shortstop usually is, slap the ball or drive a hard bunt down the third base line.
3- Pull the goalie when there are less than 5 seconds left in the period and the faceoff is in the other team’s zone. The odds of them getting the draw and firing it the length of the ice before the clock shows 0 are slim, whereas the extra man just might score a goal for you.
4- Safety squeeze play- not enough teams do this enough. If there’s a guy on third early in the game and less than two out, go ahead and try to squeeze him home- better that then let him die on the vine out there going for a hit and a big inning.
5- Play normal defense in football when up by a TD or less and under five minutes. The prevent defense prevents you from winning. Go ahead and rush.
Assuming equal chances of winning the face off, it seems like the lack of a goalie is far more of a detriment than the advantage of the extra person.
Football:
- Laterals beyond the line of scrimmage, built into the design of more plays.
- Surprise onside kicks. (Purdue worked teo last night.)
- Letting the other team score in the last two minutes (subject of another thread).
Baseball:
- Safety squeezes. They’re lower-risk and work about as often as the more popular suicide version.
- Timing pickoff plays to go after trailing runners on first base.
- Letting pop-ups drop to replace a fast runner at first base with a slow batter. (Infield fly applies only with 1st-and-2nd or bases loaded).
And finally, a completely personal pet peeve:
- Club-level curling: When you’re skip and it’s your last rock, and you don’t have a shot, throw the rock into the wall. Don’t waste ten minutes planning an impossible carom triple-promote and then throw a brick that takes out your own rock or promotes the other team.
That’s a great one. I wish Ryan Howard would do it. How tough is it to develop a little slap-bunt into your repertoire? If they give it to you, take it–slop one close to the line, it doesn’t need to be pretty. For Howard, some teams have the third baseman barely left of second. A hard bunt would roll forever. They’d stop that shift stuff in a hurry.
Yes, what you want to do it modify the RBI leader’s game into one where he stops doing what drives in more runs than just about anyone.
Nope, I don’t think that’s the effect. The shift on Howard creates a scenario where someone who could bunt it hard close to the line will get on base just about every time, ISTM. So, even if you’re a lousy bunter, let’s say that makes you a .600 hitter in shift situations. If you’re a good bunter, what does that make you–an .800 hitter? .900? Nobody will give that up, it’s more dangerous over the long haul to get on base virtually every time than to hit a homer every 10th at bat (or whatever).
That’s the point. The shift would disappear, and Ryan would be swinging away, and getting more hits on the right side as a result. As opposed to his current strategy, which is to hit ground outs when he isn’t striking out on breaking pitches away :mad:. I love Ryan Howard, but he needs to have a better plan when he’s at the plate.
That’s what I think- demonstrate that you CAN go the other way, and they can’t employ a shift against you. Once you do that, then you have more open spots to hit to your strength.
Exactly. The whole point of the shift is that you’re no danger at all to hit a ground ball the other way. Show 'em the error of their ways! Then the shift makes no sense.
In football, the good old coffin corner punt. If you have to punt just outside of FG range (and teams punt far more than they should), aim it to go out of bounds on the two. Under no circumstances should be be punting for a touchback.
I’ve wondered why you don’t see this anymore, and have the same reaction as you whenever I see a touchback. Is the prevailing wisdom now that it’s higher percentage to kick straight away and try to down it close to the goal, that it’s easier to control the distance that way or something? I don’t know. I do know that used to be the standard strategy and now it’s not.
It’s hard enough getting one receiver in position, let alone two. And if you miss a forward pass, it’s just incomplete. Missing a lateral is a fumble. And laterals almost by definition usually have defenders between the two players. I’m confident that the risk/reward ratio for lateral plays is way, way skewed towards risk.
I’m not sure, either. I know that there have been a few punters in recent years who were still good at it (like Brad Maynard), but my suspicion is that (a) punters have gotten better at hanging up a short punt (to be downed in play), and (b) relatively few punters are good at directional punting. It does seem like, when it’s tried, the punter winds up putting it out of bounds far short of the goal line (and, in many cases, at the 20 or worse).
NFL coaches seem to have gotten more aggressive on fourth and short in recent years, and I agree it’s a good move.
I was an mediocre to poor schoolboy rugby player, and I could put a heavier, much more awkwardly shaped rugby ball through a 5 yard windowat least 80% of the time from less than 40 yards away. It is inexplicable that NFL punters cannot.
Setting aside your claim of what actually sounds like pretty outstanding accuracy…I’d posit that a rugby ball is probably better suited to punting (and kicking) than an American football is. The more pointed shape of the American football came about to encourage the forward pass, but it may have come at the expense of a kickable ball.
Also, parenthetical to the original question about the move towards trying to down a punt in bounds (but just short of the goal line) versus a coffin-corner punt: some of this may have also been the result of Darren Bennett and other Australian football players who have come to the NFL as punters in the last 20 years. They seem to have popularized the “drop punt” (or “pooch punt”), which involves a different style of dropping the ball from the punter’s hand, and leads to a different type of trajectory.
Now that I think about it, it would be a 5 yard window from head on, and much less from an angle. Still, I could probably get it inside the 10 80% of the time. I don’t think it would be harder to kick a football; you kick the side, not the tip.
The downside is that a rugby/soccer style punt wouldn’t have much hangtime, so if it stayed in the field of play it would be easier to return. Seems like a worthwhile risk though.
The more I think about it (I was a very mediocre punter and placekicker in high school, myself), I think that the reason for the death of the coffin-corner kick has been this:
On a pooch punt, you have two shots at a favorable outcome:
(a) You hang up a high, short punt, and the punt returner is forced to fair catch it (probably between the 10 and 20 yard line; nearly all punt returners are instructed to not field punts which are going to land inside the 10)
(b) You hang up a high, not quite as short punt, and your cover team is able to down it within the 10.
Meanwhile, you have one real possible unfavorable outcome: the ball bounces into the end zone, and your opponent gets it at the 20.
Meanwhile, on a coffin corner punt, your one favorable outcome is that you put it out of bounds inside the 20 (and, preferably, closer to the end zone). Meanwhile, you have two unfavorable outcomes:
(a) You hit the ball too straight, and it goes into the end zone (touchback)
(b) You shank the punt off the side of your foot, and it goes out of bounds outside the 20.
I have to guess that the last outcome (which is virtually impossible on a pooch kick) happened often enough on coffin-corner kicks that special teams coaches proceeded to fall in love with the pooch kick.
shrug punters shank punts down the middle out of bounds all the time, too.
Fumblerooski, because it is fun play and a funner [sic] name.
[QUOTE=Howard Schnellenberger]
We had to come up with some good plays at the end there to win it, but we did force them to resort to the f***ing fumblerooski. I told them before the game if those bastards have to run the fumblerooski, come to the sidelines and party because they have given up their right of manhood.
[/QUOTE]
Cam Newton and the Panthers ran a variant of the Fumblerooski in a recent game.
Intentional fumbles are illegal now in CFB.:mad: