Packers: 4 Big Questions for Special Teams Entering Training Camp
By Paul Bretl
Can Maurice Drayton turn this unit around?
Truthfully, we won’t have the answer to this question until we see what takes place during the regular season, but training camp and the preseason will give us a bit of a glimpse into what might be coming down the road. And as we’ve seen in recent years, Drayton has a tall task ahead of him.
Whether you look at PFF’s ($$) special teams metrics or that of Rick Gosselin’s of Sports Illustrated, who comes out with his yearly rankings, the Green Bay Packers ranked near the bottom of the NFL in special teams play in 2020. A spot in the rankings that they’ve unfortunately been all too familiar with.
Last season was particularly difficult to watch as we saw poor kick return attempts, bad snaps, punt returns allowed for touchdowns, a fumble, inconsistency from Scott, and a blocked punt. I’m sure I’ve missed something, but you get the idea.
There is no one thing that is going to turn this unit around; it’s going to have to be a collective effort dependent upon Drayton as a coach, the effort from the players, the talent of the contributors, and many more things. For this Green Bay Packers team, it’s not as if this has to be a dominant special teams unit, but eventually, all of those mistakes are going to cost them in the win-loss column if they don’t start performing better.