Do the Raiders have the coolest/best punter in the NFL
Marquette King riding the pony after a second consecutive punt pinned the Broncos deep in their own territory to start a second consecutive possession.
By Rich Winter
Buddy of mine sent me a note on Facebook kinda kidding with me about Oakland's punter being a little over the top. "Him riding the pony against Denver was classic," he authored.
Hell yeah it was!
Lost in all the furor over King's near excessive celebrations on the field (can't wait for that flag), is just how good Marquette King is as a punter. Twice in that game on back-to-back possessions, King pinned the Broncos inside their own two yard line. Those are both huge, energy depleting moments for the Oakland Raiders as the Broncos trot onto the field knowing they have 65 yards to drive to get in field goal range and 98 plus yards to go to get a TD.
Couple of years ago when Jack Del Rio hired Brad Seely as Special Teams coach, buddy of mine who is the Special Teams Coach for a team out east, told me via Facebook what a great hire that was.
Oakland won the battle of field position all night vs. Denver. Sebastian Janikowski's kicks are always deep enough to put the other team in that weird area, four yards deep, where they wanna bring it out but know they shouldn't, and regularly don't.
While Denver was starting inside their own 20 with regularity, Oakland was starting at their own 30 or 40.
On those two specific punts of King's, the Raiders were just outside the Broncos 40 with 4th-and-whatever....Could have gone for a wicked long field goal (S-Bass is struggling from outside 50 this season), but instead handed the moment to Marquette King.
And he delivered with coverage guys getting down there to make big plays on back to back punts. Seems like I read or heard somewhere that King is leading the NFL with 21 punts inside the 20. There is a nack for that, King is good at it and the team seems to have embraced their special teams roles and are getting better at them.
Going forward, ask any coach and they'll tell you that special teams is a third of the game. I like where Oakland's special teams play is right now. Thought the return game for both punts and kickoffs was great the other night. Oakland hasn't busted a return TD in forever but the guys took what was there, got up field and put the Raiders in great shape quite often.
Love it.....7-2 and off to the bye week....hell yeah!!
