By Sean Millington,
CFL.ca
Special teams. I don’t know how the term ever came to be applied to the part of football known as the kicking game, but you would be hard pressed to find a better moniker.
It is special because no other play in football causes the kind of changes in field position that the kicking game does 99 percent of the time. If the offence is a dagger to the heart, then the kicking game is the hand that drives it home.
It is said that defence wins championships, but I would add that it does so riding on the back of the kicking game. Most coaches will tell you that you have a great chance to be successful if you win two of the three elements of a football game. On offence, defence or special teams, if you are able to dominate the other team in at least two of these three areas, you will probably win the game.
What is not said, however, is that one of the two elements you win had better be the kicking game. It is quite possible to be dominant offensively and defensively and still lose the game due to poor special teams. This highlights the importance of the kicking game to a team’s success. Yet all too often players treat it as a necessary evil, something to be endured until they can get back to playing their real position.
I think the great players in the CFL understand the importance of the kicking game. Not coincidentally, their first taste of being a starter was often on special teams. Guys like B.C. Lion Javier Glatt, Tiger-Cat Corey Holmes, and Eskimo linebacker A.J. Gass are significant contributors on special teams in addition to their roles as full-time starters. As a player, I asked to be put on special teams, even when at times coaches wanted to take me off them in order to save me for offence. But I wanted to have as many chances as possible to affect the outcome of the game.
This season, there seems to be common perception that the kicking game is not as exciting as it has been in the past, that there are too many flags being thrown. In some ways this is true. For example, it wasn’t until almost half-way through the season that the first kick was returned for a touchdown; at the same point in the season last year there had been over eight. One of the key factors in this is a redefining of the rule governing where a player is allowed to contact an opponent when blocking him on special teams.
This was a rule change, requested by coaches, has had the unexpected result of reducing the amount of scoring from punt and kick returns. A number of people have been critical of this change and have called for it to be changed back.
I for one agree with Als coach Don Matthews, who remarked that the objective of this rule change was to increase player safety and therefore it should stay as is. Prior to the rule change a lot of clipping penalties were going un-flagged. The current rule makes it easy for a referee to determine whether a clip has occurred and as a result more flags are being thrown which is better for player safety. What needs to happen is not for the rule to be changed back, but for players to adjust their play.
In all the commotion over rule changes and the reduction in scoring, the point that everyone is missing is that coaches, in recognition of the importance of the kicking game, are putting greater emphasis on it. More time is spent practicing it and more time is spent trying to devise ways to stop opponents from getting big plays.
Some would argue that the way the kicking game is being played now is taking the special out of special teams. I would say it is making it special in a different way. Just as when the defence is playing well, not a lot of points are scored offensively. I think defensive special teams are currently playing well and limiting the amount of points scored. That doesn’t mean the kicking game is no longer exciting; it just means you have to learn to appreciate kicking game defence as well as offence.
Sean Millington played 13 years in the CFL with the Edmonton Eskimos, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, B.C. Lions and Toronto Argonauts and has been a panelist on the CFL on CBC since 2003.
(The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily of the Canadian Football League)
