The new guys have played 18 football games to this point - if they're not 'good special teams players' to this point, that's on the coaches who either A) Haven't done a good job coaching them up or B) haven't acknowledged physical or mental shortcomings prevent these guys from playing sound STs.

If your STs coach needs 5-6 dedicated 'special teams aces' to have even an average STs unit, then he ain't doing shit.

Let's not pretend like STs is offense or even defense. The degree of difficulty is substantially lower than playing O or D.

Figure it the !@#$ out or take steps designed to mitigate it. If your coverage units still suck, have your All Pro punter directionally kick the ball to cut the field in half (or put it OOB). Have him hang it way up there, sacrifice 2 yards of net but make it easier on your punt coverage unit. On kickoffs, drill the ****er out the back of the end zone.

Even if you want to make excuses for Toub having 'bad special teams players' at this point in the season, there are no excuses for the fact that he continues to put this unit in positions to fail. He can take so much of this risk of the table but he flat refuses to do so.

He's done a piss poor job this year - full stop.

Harmless comment but coach speak 101 is to stick to saying "We" as any over analysis could be perceived as him saying a decision made by this particular person didn't work out.

Then you don't have to caveat it with he's a smart guy.

Its not even a nick in the totem pole of things that have gone wrong for him this season though.

Lol, just how many times did STs give up a big return this season? Maybe a handful? I’m can’t remember more than a couple. 4 missed kicks by Butker. Maybe another handful of bad plays over the season?

And how many snaps did STs actually have this season? 200? Less? So what’s the worst case in terms of bad plays vs even ones? Less than 10%? And how many good plays? Never mind nod his record over the last 20 years.

Whatever. Toub isn’t going anywhere. STs were shaky early, but they’re getting better, not worse. Lot of bs about nada.

Bro they got ranked 32nd on ST's...

They gave up 2 big returns on Saturday. On the season they were in the bottom 1/3 of the league in kickoff coverage.

I mean if you want to forget and/or hand-waive everything that actually happened on special teams, be my guest.

The rest of us saw a shit special teams unit the entire season.

Yeah, everyone knows they weren’t good this season, especially in the first half or so.

Course, Butker missing a bunch of games didn’t help, did it?

But yet again, season total stats don’t allow you to compare early vs end of season performance, do they? You guys gotta stop holding up season totals as if they are the holy grail or something

STs are a mess, but thankfully the Bengals don't have a returner like Agnew.

Could definitely be an issue if we have to play the 49ers because McCloud is really good.

STs played a near perfect game vs LVR. How’d they do that if Toub is so bad at his job?

Again, the Skyy Moore situation perfectly illustrates this. If it was obvious to all of us that he wasn't comfortable fielding punts why did Toub keep trotting him out there? From a fans perspective there never even seemed to be an improvement or a moment that made anyone believe he could get it.

I disagree. I'm not saying it's a big deal but his tone and just the answer itself was meant as a slight. Whether it's comparable is another thing. But saying nothing isn't impressive, as he cuts the guy off, means he isn't impressed. No comment is different.

By this argument no coach should ever be criticized. He kicked to the jags returner last week after he not only killed is in the regular season, but had earlier in the game. Add everything up and some of this is on him. Otherwise no special teams coordinator can ever take heat for anything.

This was my feeling exactly. I'd like to see the numbers but this year seemed to be the year he didn't get "his guys" and lo and behold they look awful

Nailed it.

To be fair, Toub said the plan was to kick it through the EZ every time and Butker didn't do it.

Matt Cassel once threw for 469 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Must've meant he was a great QB afterall, eh?