Kudos to Tampa Bay Times staff writer Greg Auman who has dug into why Michael Koenen is struggling so far in his punting average. The Bucs offense will run out of downs, but never fear because Koenen is coming to punt right? Not so much lately, it seems like the ball doesn’t go anywhere NEAR as far as it used to. Well there is an answer, and it comes from the Bucs coaching staff, who is telling Koenen not to get more under the ball, seeking 
more fair catches than punt returns.
It seems this change happened after the Devin Hester punt return, because since then, the balls are going up!
Koenen told Augman the coaching staff has put an emphasis on getting fair catches, to limit returns. If thats true, the Bucs are succeeding. Tampa Bay is 7th best in fair catches. But Also Koenen is 30th out of 33 punters in the league in averages. But he says he’ll take the hit on stats to get the job done, and that says a lot for consistently one of the better punters in the league.
THURSDAY NIGHT BLOWOUTS
As you remember, the Bucs were blown out in Atlanta on Thursday Night Football, at one point down 59-0, at that moment, the worst score ever seen against the Bucs ever. If not for 14 points scored at the end, the Bucs avoided that distinction and instead turned in the 3rd worse result in team history.
But if you watch football on Thursday nights, you see its not a very good product. While last nights game was close at the end, it was also 24-0 in the first quarter, and if not for one man, JJ Watt, the Texans would have continued the streak. Before that the Packers whipped Minnesota 42-10. In week 4 the Giants killed Washington 45-14. Week 3 saw the Bucs embarrassment. Week 2 was a Baltimore Ravens beat down of the Steelers 26-6 and even week 1, the Seattle Seahawks beat the Packers 36-16.
Last nights game was the closest, and I suspect we may start to see the games improve. If you remember we always had late season Thursday night games, and they didn’t always result in a blowout.
So whats causing it? Simple. On a short week like that, the disparity between two teams is made even greater by the shorter time to prepare and heal for NFL players. Almost every game, the better team won by a big margin. There have not been any upsets, not really.
Tampa Bay just does not have the roster that Atlanta has. Thats not to say the Bucs can’t beat Atlanta on any given Sunday, or that even they couldn’t sweep the Falcons. But Tampa Bay is a new team with a lot of new players, over 200 roster moves since Lovie Smith was hired. Atlanta has a coaching staff that has been there for years, and players who all know their systems year in and year out. With such a short week, the differences between the two teams became even greater, and the result is a blowout.
Think of it as similar to the Two Weeks before a Super Bowl. Almost every Super Bowl where there is two weeks (ALMOST, not all) before the game, there is usually a blowout. Why? Because a better team with a better coaching staff has even THAT much more time to prepare for the event. It makes the disparity even bigger.
Maybe Green Bay wasn’t a bad team, but Seattle was coming off a SuperBowl win, they were prepared and it looked like it was a week after playing the Broncos! Add to the fact usually the Home team is the winner. Another advantage one team has over the other, that gets multiplied if you will because of the short week.
As the season rolls on we should see less and less of this, but I believe the NFL should eliminate Thursday Night Football for the first 8 games. Start the Sunday Night Game at 7PM and give CBS a LATE Sunday Night game, with west coast teams like Monday Night Football does on opening week. Football starved fans will eat up the 4 straight games, it’ll be just like college football. Wives everywhere will panic and cause mayhem! That alone would be worth watching: thats the kind of blowout fans want to see!
NOTE: THE OPTIMIST is back on www.JoeBucsFan.com Today and every Wednesday. Don’t miss it, and the rebuttal page right here the next morning!
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