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x-special teams coach Mike Westhoff : 'The job I did doesn't exist today' ~ ~ ~


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Ex-special teams coach Mike Westhoff : 'The job I did doesn't exist today'

 

Former New York Jets special teams coordinator Mike Westhoff, who retired after the 2012 season, has turned down several opportunities to return to coaching. He enjoys his job as a TV and radio analyst, but there's more to it than that."The job I did doesn't exist today," he said in a phone interview. "What do you want me to coach, touchbacks? Not interested."

 

Westhoff is right. Rule changes have turned the kicking game into Special Teams Lite. By his count, there are only eight to 10 "action" plays per game, down from 18.Specifically, the touchback rate reached an all-time high last season (50.3 percent), watering down one of the most exciting plays in the game -- the kickoff return. Westhoff built his reputation, in part, because of his uncanny success on kickoff returns. In 2012, the kickoff was moved out to the 35-yard line to reduce head injuries -- more touchbacks, fewer collisions -- although Westhoff suspects the concussion rate under the old rule wasn't as high as feared.

 

Frankly, the PAT is a waste of time (a 99.3-percent success rate last season), so the league is exploring ways to improve what is now a non-competitive play. The competition committee expressed optimism at the league meetings earlier this week that a new PAT format will be approved by May.

You've heard the expression, "He outkicked his coverage." These days, kickers are outkicking the rules. They're too good.

 

"Kicking has become easier today," said Westhoff, who coached 30 years in the NFL. "The kickers are bigger, stronger and better athletes than before. We always used to picture a little soccer guy like Matt Bahr, but that's not true today. The kids are bigger and better. If you don't have a 90-percent [success] guy, you better have your eyes open."Other factors have contributed, according to Westhoff: The snaps are almost always perfect. Long-snappers no longer have to worry about an opponent lining up directly over them -- another safety-related rule change. The "get-off" time on a placement has gone from 1.33 seconds to 1.23, per Westhoff's calculations, making it harder to block a kick.

 

Stadium configurations, too, have helped kickers. Westhoff recalled the old days at Giants Stadium, where the notorious wind was a huge factor. That's not the case at MetLife Stadium."Now," he said, "it's benign."Westhoff is a traditionalist, but he believes it's "reasonable" to move PATs to the 15-yard line, which would create a 32- or 33-yard kick. That's one of the proposals on the table. Even that distance is a gimme for some kickers, as 10 teams converted 100 percent of their field goals in the 30-39 range last season.

 

He'd also like to see the goal posts narrowed by a yard, raising the degree of difficulty. Westhoff, who does some consulting on the side, brought that idea to the FXFL developmental league last year. The league liked it, he said, but it simply didn't have the money to change the goal posts.Westhoff also has proposed the idea of a kicking hash for field-goal attempts, creating "a slightly smaller target from slightly wider angle. That will bring kicking percentages back to where they should be and make it a little more difficult."That, of course, would affect third-down play calling. Teams would be hesitant to run plays outside the hashmarks, knowing they'd have a tougher field goal if the ball ends up getting pushed out to the kicking hash.

 

Clearly, the league has a lot to consider, starting with the PAT. It's the most non-descript play in football, yet so complex. Westhoff is certain about one thing: He's not in favor of the nine-point play, proposed by the Indianapolis Colts."That would junk up the game," he said. "It would create a carnival-type image."

 

> http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/165353/ex-special-teams-coach-mike-westhoff-the-job-i-did-doesnt-exist-today

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He'd also like to see the goal posts narrowed by a yard, raising the degree of difficulty. Westhoff, who does some consulting on the side, brought that idea to the FXFL developmental league last year. The league liked it, he said, but it simply didn't have the money to change the goal posts.

 

 

The league didn't have the money? Seriously? WTF?

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He'd also like to see the goal posts narrowed by a yard, raising the degree of difficulty. Westhoff, who does some consulting on the side, brought that idea to the FXFL developmental league last year. The league liked it, he said, but it simply didn't have the money to change the goal posts.

 

 

The league didn't have the money? Seriously? WTF?

 

 

That last sentence is in regards to the FXFL football league.  Remember WWE's vince mcmahons football smut fest creation?  Yeah I doubt they have much money floating around in that league.

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No more freaking rules changes. They have made the game almost unrecognizable from the game I grew up loving. Now you can hardly play defense at all and now they want to screw with the PAT and FG's. I say if it ain't broke don't fix it. Push the kickoffs back to the 35 yard line and lets play football. Westhoff is right about there being no need for special team coaches anymore and that is sad. Roger Goodell will fu&k around with things until he drives the fan base completely away.

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No more freaking rules changes. They have made the game almost unrecognizable from the game I grew up loving. Now you can hardly play defense at all and now they want to screw with the PAT and FG's. I say if it ain't broke don't fix it. Push the kickoffs back to the 35 yard line and lets play football. Westhoff is right about there being no need for special team coaches anymore and that is sad. Roger Goodell will fu&k around with things until he drives the fan base completely away.

 

The PAT is broke.  It's too routine and easy.

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It hasn't always been at 99.7% efficiency, which it is now.

I don't know what the numbers were prior and they probably were a little worse - but I've been watching NFL football a long time and I can't remember a time where the XP wasn't considered an afterthought.  The extra points been gimme for ever - no need to keep messing with the game.

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I don't know what the numbers were prior and they probably were a little worse - but I've been watching NFL football a long time and I can't remember a time where the XP wasn't considered an afterthought. The extra points been gimme for ever - no need to keep messing with the game.

No need to be giving away free points either. Offenses have it good enough as it is.

JMO, but I would just ban PATs. Always have to go for 2. I think the XFL did that but I may be wrong.

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Westhoff seemed to have retired in the lats season of his job itself. Why would anyone want him back.

 

he was one of the best. I'd luv to have him work with our players during training camp    :character0181:

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while on the subj. of PAT..

 

 

~ ~  Monday Morning Quarterback

Mon Mar. 30, 2015
Extra Points: How the PAT Could Change by This Fall The 32 teams are near unanimous in believing the point after touchdown needs to change. Precisely how is another story. The details of a compromise that goes to vote in May. Plus why the Saints own the draft, and eight coaches on the spot
 
 
 
 
 

We’re exactly one month out from round one of the NFL draft. There’s a lot to cover this week, including :

  • Ten questions for eight coaches at the league meetings, which just concluded in Arizona
  • Pete Carroll tells me he is not tortured. (Didn’t think he was) 
  • Suddenly, the Saints—who are not finished making over their team—own the 2015 draft
  • The Browns have plenty of draft ammo—that is, unless the NFL takes some of it to smite GM Ray Farmer
  • Just what parity needs: the Patriots with three prime selections in a six-pick span 
  • NFL draft wise guy: “This year, the 20th pick is the same as the 50th pick to me” 
  • Why April 17-18 is very important to this draft
  • Nine prospects have separated themselves
  • And a cool draft wrinkle the fans in Chicago will like

But first, the biggest change to NFL scoring in the 95-year history of the league is coming. If you don’t like it, get out of the way.

* * *

Post-touchdown could feature three new ways of scoring.

Last year, in a general session at an NFL meeting, the league’s 32 teams agreed—almost unanimously—that the point after touchdown was passé. Had to go. Too automatic. And so eight days ago, when the competition committee gathered in Phoenix to go over potential rule changes for the 2015 season, the committee was stuck on the PAT fix. There was nothing the group thought it could sell that would get the required 24 votes from the teams. (A rule change needs a three-quarter vote to pass.) Find a compromise, the committee was told; the league can’t go another year with 99.6 percent extra-point efficiency—the league average for the past three years.

 

So on Tuesday, each team had a chance to express opinions on what the new rule should be. Thirty of 32 teams said they wanted the PAT to change, as teams, one by one, had a chance to advance their own solutions. But the opinions on what the new rule should be “were all over the map,” one competition committee member told me in Phoenix. “That’s the problem now. No one can agree, and now we have to come up with a compromise that’ll get 24 votes in May.”

 

This is the most likely compromise to be advanced, and the most likely way the league will amend how teams can score after a touchdown :

  • Teams will have a choice whether to go for one or two points after a touchdown, from different distances.
  • If the offensive team chooses to kick for one point, the scrimmage line will move from the 2-yard-line to the 15-yard line, making it a 32- or 33-yard attempt.
  • If the offensive team chooses to go for two points, the scrimmage line will be either the 1-and-a half- or 2-yard line. There was much debate about making it the 1, the 1-and-a-half or the 2. The feeling about putting it on the 1 was that it could turn into too much of a scrum/push-the-pile play, or a fluky puncture-the-goal-line-with-the-ball-and-bring-it-back play by the quarterback. Putting it at the 1-and-a-half or leaving it at the 2 would increase the chances of a real football play with some drama.
  • The defensive team would be able to score two points by either blocking the PAT and returning it downfield to the end zone, or by intercepting the two-point attempt and running it back, or recovering a fumble on the two-point play and returning it all the way.

Again, that’s not certain. Anytime you ask 24 teams to agree on anything, there’s a chance it won’t happen. But if 30 of 32 teams agree that the PAT is broken, there’s a good chance they’d agree to change some form of the rule. And what I’ve laid out is the most likely scenario to be passed in May, during the next league meeting.

 

There always will be those who don’t want the scoring system to change, because of tradition, or the attitude that football’s not broken, so why fix it? But the PAT is broken. The current system of scoring was invented by the lords of college football in 1912—six points for a touchdown, one for an extra point, two for a safety, three for a field goal—with the two-point conversion added by the NFL in 1994. Now the PAT cries out to be fixed. It’s simply not a competitive play anymore. Fifteen teams have not missed a PAT this decade. Tennessee hasn’t missed one since 2005, Kansas City and San Francisco since 2006. The Patriots and Broncos, combined, are 436 for 436 since 2011. Doing nothing would be the mistake.

 

rest of above article :

> http://mmqb.si.com/2015/03/30/extra-points-pat-rule-change-nfl-draft/5/

 

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