For some reason this popped into my brain today and I was surprised there wasn't more mentioned about this during the playoffs. Special teams only seemed to play negative roles in games (SF and BAL) compared to highlights of epic runbacks.

 

For the season, just from watching the games, you knew there would be an impact to most teams with good return games. Almost every other kickoff ended up as a touchback and the Bears would start around the 20 compared to the 30 or 35. So I was curious and looked at some various numbers. None of these are completely conclusive or tied directly to the new rule, but taken into context you can see that the new rule did indeed affect the Bears.

 

The Bears had the best Starting LoS in 2010 and dropped to 24th in 2011. They lost an average of 6.5 yards a drive, the biggest drop of any team. The next closest was KC at 6.19 yards and Pittsburgh, Arizona, and St. Louis all lost over 4 yards a drive as well. Only 7 teams had a better starting LoS than last year, and the teams that benefited the most were Houston, gaining 4.79 yards a drive, and SF gaining 4.71. The other 5 teams all gained less than a yard per drive.

 

The Bears had a starting LoS of 33.37 in 2010 and that dropped to 26.87 in 2011. Just to be sure that this wasn't a one year anomaly, I looked back at the past three years for the Bears, and they were first every year (32.31 in 2009, 33.48 in 2008, 34.43 in 2007).

 

For the entire league, kickoff returns dropped from 2033 in 2010 to 1375 in 2011. A total of 658 less kickoff returns, about 20 per team. The lowest return total was 46 (ATL) in 2010, and only 9 teams had more than that number this year. Atlanta only returned 24 kickoffs this year as a team and 21 players had more than their entire team.

 

So now I looked at the Bears; we only had two less returns than 2010 but averaged 4 less yards per return. Was it the loss of Danieal Manning or was it the rule? Manning only returned 13 for Houston and Houston as a team only returned 29 kickoffs, so the impact was not that big. With us only having two less returns, it seems like we ran some out of the end zone when it would've been better to take a knee.

 

Again, all of this could be circumstantial, but either the rule did impact the team or we really miss Manning on kickoffs.

 

Either way going from 1st to 24th in starting LoS didn't help the team much this year.

 

LoS stats from: http://footballoutsiders.com/stats/drivestats

Thanks for doing the legwork on that.

 

I'm not surprised by the results. Turnover on ST, Hester's injuries, having just Knox over Manning, etc...all contribute to it as well I think.

 

For some reason this popped into my brain today and I was surprised there wasn't more mentioned about this during the playoffs. Special teams only seemed to play negative roles in games (SF and BAL) compared to highlights of epic runbacks.

 

For the season, just from watching the games, you knew there would be an impact to most teams with good return games. Almost every other kickoff ended up as a touchback and the Bears would start around the 20 compared to the 30 or 35. So I was curious and looked at some various numbers. None of these are completely conclusive or tied directly to the new rule, but taken into context you can see that the new rule did indeed affect the Bears.

 

The Bears had the best Starting LoS in 2010 and dropped to 24th in 2011. They lost an average of 6.5 yards a drive, the biggest drop of any team. The next closest was KC at 6.19 yards and Pittsburgh, Arizona, and St. Louis all lost over 4 yards a drive as well. Only 7 teams had a better starting LoS than last year, and the teams that benefited the most were Houston, gaining 4.79 yards a drive, and SF gaining 4.71. The other 5 teams all gained less than a yard per drive.

 

The Bears had a starting LoS of 33.37 in 2010 and that dropped to 26.87 in 2011. Just to be sure that this wasn't a one year anomaly, I looked back at the past three years for the Bears, and they were first every year (32.31 in 2009, 33.48 in 2008, 34.43 in 2007).

 

For the entire league, kickoff returns dropped from 2033 in 2010 to 1375 in 2011. A total of 658 less kickoff returns, about 20 per team. The lowest return total was 46 (ATL) in 2010, and only 9 teams had more than that number this year. Atlanta only returned 24 kickoffs this year as a team and 21 players had more than their entire team.

 

So now I looked at the Bears; we only had two less returns than 2010 but averaged 4 less yards per return. Was it the loss of Danieal Manning or was it the rule? Manning only returned 13 for Houston and Houston as a team only returned 29 kickoffs, so the impact was not that big. With us only having two less two less returns, it seems like we ran some out of the end zone when it would've been better to take a knee.

 

Again, all of this could be circumstantial, but either the rule did impact the team or we really miss Manning on kickoffs.

 

Either way going from 1st to 24th in starting LoS didn't help the team much this year.

 

LoS stats from: http://footballoutsiders.com/stats/drivestats

 

yep, interesting.

I saw a lot of returns from the end zone that resulted in us starting inside our own 20, kick offs which we should not have taken out of the EZ. I think, or guess actually, that if we had been smarter as to taking a knee in the EZ when it was evident instead of rolling the dice trying to break one, then our average LOS would be somewhat better.

I just didn't realize we were that bad (24th), but when I look back, we rarely had good starting position after a kickoff.

The problem is not the new rule itself but in our return men. Many times I saw our guys waiting to find somewhere to break the long one instead of running north and south to gain as many yards as possible before being tackled. Hester likes to run east and west at times thereby losing yards and putting us at a disadvantage with the lost yards. Then on the other hand with the guys we have back there teams are just game planning to stop our best weapon on special teams by kicking the ball away from us.