State of the Offseason Saints: Special Teams
The Saints hopefully make some traction this week with some coaching additions. For their offense, they currently need three position coaches and also have a Senior Offensive Assistant opening. After next Sunday, the season will officially end and leave behind a void for football fans. We're wrapping up our offseason outlooks for the Saints, looking at our final position on the roster in the special teams group.
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Saints Special Teams Overview
Oct 1, 2023; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; New Orleans Saints place kicker Blake Grupe (19) makes a field goal against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the first quarter at the Caesars Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Hinton-USA TODAY Sports
Players Under Contract: Blake Grupe, Lou Hedley, Zach Wood, J.T. Gray, Rashid Shaheed, Nephi Sewell, D'Marco Jackson, Taysom Hill, Tanoh Kpassagnon, Isaiah Foskey, Jordan Howden
Free Agent Outlook: Zack Baun, Andrew Dowell, Lonnie Johnson Jr., Johnathan Abram, Ty Summers
Priority Level: Low
You'll notice that we put in some extra players for special teams, making sure that we don't overlook some main contributors to the kick teams. The Darren Rizzi impact turned in a second overall unit in the Rick Gosselin Special Teams Rankings, making it the fifth time in six years that Rizzi's units have made it in the Top 5.
Saints Special Teams Snap Count Leaders - 2023
- Zack Baun - 385 (82.8%)
- D'Marco Jackson - 384 (82.6%)
- Ty Summers - 303 (65.2%)
- J.T. Gray - 301 (64.7%)
- Isaac Yiadom - 267 (57.4%)
- Nephi Sewell - 266 (57.2%)
- Lonnie Johnson Jr. - 249 (53.6%)
When you think about bold moves made last season, the special teams decisions rank up at the top. Moving on from Blake Gillikin and Wil Lutz in favor of two undrafted rookies certainly had its fair share of criticism, especially when things didn't exactly look perfect to start the year. Darren Rizzi had been in this situation before in Miami, so it wasn't exactly new to him. Grupe went on the finish eighth in the NFL in scoring with 130 points and the Saints kick return unit finished third in the league giving up an average of 18.8 yards/return.
One of the things from the Senior Bowl assistant special teams coach Phil Galiano said regarding Grupe's rookie season was quite interesting. He labeled it as an above-average year for him.
Galiano said, "I think we're really excited about his future. I think if we could take two kicks back, the two short ones that he missed, then you'd be having a different conversation saying, 'You know what, he had a really, really good year'. But you can't, and he missed them, but he learned from them."
He further put an emphasis on how his second season will lead to a big jump, mainly due to the fact that Grupe knows how to handle his body. What he mentioned there was how he didn't exactly have a break, going from the end of his college year to training for the combine, pro day and then rookie camp. It's the first time in a while Grupe will have some downtime, which should lead to him being better in theory.
Regarding Lou Hedley, it's quite the unorthodox style of punting. The rugby style doesn't lead to booming punts and don't exactly look pretty, but the stats tell a different story. New Orleans finished first in the league with a 5.6 yards/return average. The thought process and theory behind this is that you could punt a ball for 60 yards, give up a 10-15 yard return and then just punt it 45 and have a minimal to no return and it produces the same net.
Rashid Shaheed finished as the only Saints player who was selected to the Pro Bowl from the voting process and was a First-Team All-Pro. He finished third in the NFL in punt return yards (339), having a 13.6 yard average/return. He had a long of 76, which was a touchdown against the Packers in Week 3. As always, he's electric when he has the ball in his hands and always seems like he's one step away from breaking something big.
Special teams, while it might be dull on the surface compared to the other phases of the game, absolutely matter. When it's going great, no one says much, but when it doesn't look good, it's under fire. For New Orleans, they're going to undoubtedly get a few of their free agents back into the mix who will have big roles on the return teams. There's also going to be some other players the team grabs through free agency or the draft process who will earn their bread and butter this way. No matter how the Saints get there, they should have another formidable special teams unit going into next season.
