Baldwin on punt returning

I love Baldwin and he has great hands but I think he too is not the right player to return punts. He's just not fast enough to break a decent return. Not sure if we even have anyone on our roster to take on this job (maybe Richardson). Thoughts?

I get the feeling we are just trying out conservative sure handed SMART players that make good decisions (the choice to field the ball inside the 5 and run in circles exception) to hold the spot. I think Richardson is probably the guy that ends up there after he gets some more experience on kickoffs and gets a bit more comfortable/decisive. We shall see.

38 yards doesn't exactly suck for a punt return. Doug mentioned he hasn't done PR since his sophomore year of college, so he's re-learning it. He'll be fine.

seabowl":1sf8oqu8 said:

I love Baldwin and he has great hands but I think he too is not the right player to return punts. He's just not fast enough to break a decent return. Not sure if we even have anyone on our roster to take on this job (maybe Richardson). Thoughts?

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Trying to think of who is fast enough on this team to be a punt returner, maybe we need to go and get a track guy, after all WR's, DB's are way to slow for this job.

You all got spoiled by a high risk type PR in Tate, he had a body of a running back and was elusive, but he wasn't fast as you all say. He was pretty fearless as well and made catches when statistically he should have called a fair catch. Be thankful we have guys that can do the job adequately, there are teams that have a far worse situation then we have.

chris98251":3q90bkbf said:

seabowl":3q90bkbf said:

I love Baldwin and he has great hands but I think he too is not the right player to return punts. He's just not fast enough to break a decent return. Not sure if we even have anyone on our roster to take on this job (maybe Richardson). Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Trying to think of who is fast enough on this team to be a punt returner, maybe we need to go and get a track guy, after all WR's, DB's are way to slow for this job.

You all got spoiled by a high risk type PR in Tate, he had a body of a running back and was elusive, but he wasn't fast as you all say. He was pretty fearless as well and made catches when statistically he should have called a fair catch. Be thankful we have guys that can do the job adequately, there are teams that have a far worse situation then we have.

Click to expand...

Lol like Carolina. Their PR/KR looked like Walters out there. Lol

I think Doug is a step up from Walters. He's a little bit shiftier but has much better vision I think. But truthfully I think Walters and now Doug are both just temporary until Richardson is ready to take over.

Baldwin may not be the careless speedster on returns, but he's fluid and smart. He played it safe when he needed to, picked up yards where he could, and ripped off one very nice return in this game. Unless you're talking about a Devin Hester type of guy, that's more than adequate from a punt returner.

chris98251":1u3z1qql said:

seabowl":1u3z1qql said:

I love Baldwin and he has great hands but I think he too is not the right player to return punts. He's just not fast enough to break a decent return. Not sure if we even have anyone on our roster to take on this job (maybe Richardson). Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Trying to think of who is fast enough on this team to be a punt returner, maybe we need to go and get a track guy, after all WR's, DB's are way to slow for this job.

You all got spoiled by a high risk type PR in Tate, he had a body of a running back and was elusive, but he wasn't fast as you all say. He was pretty fearless as well and made catches when statistically he should have called a fair catch. Be thankful we have guys that can do the job adequately, there are teams that have a far worse situation then we have.

Click to expand...

I agree with this, outside of the return that was called back at Arizona Tate never exhibited the breakaway speed on returns but he consistently made nice returns that got us good yardage which is the same thing I thing Baldwin can do. I would like to see what Lockette can do in these situations but I'm guessing there is a reason Pete hasn't gone that route. I'm fine with Walters doing the punt returns if he is on the roster but my issue is that Walters shouldn't be on the roster so hopefully the decision they made this week sticks.

Aside from the obvious gaffes, I thought he did fairly well. He only had one week of practice at it, you know. If he's the guy the rest of the year, I wouldn't mind.

We're not gonna get a TD on every punt return guys.

His one return was excellent. That's something to build on as he continues to adapt to the position.

Seahawk Sailor":6p190uev said:

Baldwin may not be the careless speedster on returns, but he's fluid and smart. He played it safe when he needed to, picked up yards where he could, and ripped off one very nice return in this game. Unless you're talking about a Devin Hester type of guy, that's more than adequate from a punt returner.

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I cut him slack because he hasn't done it for awhile, but I thought he made to judgement errors yesterday in the return game.

First one was when he tried to return the ball inside the 5. I thought he should have just let it bounce and take the odds of it going into the endzone.

The other was when he let the ball bounce around the 20 yard line. That one looked like a good place for a fair catch.

Like I said, I think he's better than that, and likely needed to shake off some rust and will be fine, but it wasn't his best showing yesterday IMO

We need PR to be the PR.

He wast fast enough to break a 69 yard KO return in the NFCCG, and there's a lot more fast guys out there than on the punt unit.