The Falcons' special-teams units will be hardly recognizable when they face the Seahawks at 1 p.m. Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in the season opener.
Fans at home will need a scorecard for the new punter, punt returner and kickoff returner in an extreme makeover under second-year coordinator Ben Kotwica.
The Falcons began the process with the kicker last season and were so pleased with Younghoe Koo, the former Georgia Southern standout, that they didn’t bring in any competition for him over the offseason.
After having a revolving door punter last season because of Matt Bosher’s groin injury, the Falcons elected to draft Sterling Hofrichter from Syracuse in the seventh round.
The Falcons didn’t re-sign veteran returner Kenjon Barner, who returned punts and kickoffs last season. He returned a punt for a touchdown last season, the first by a Falcon since the 2014 season.
With no exhibition games because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Falcons will enter the season with untested special-teams units after they finished ranked 30th of 32 last season.
“We’re doing well,” Kotwica said Thursday. “The units are coming along well. We’ve done a really nice job of connecting. Obviously, the circumstances have been unlike a year that I can remember. But it really gave us an opportunity to get to know each other in a different form.”
After the virtual offseason, the Falcons had four weeks to pull things together.
“I’m excited to see what it will look like on Sunday,” Kotwica said.
Hofrichter has been excellent in practice and in the scrimmages. He’s been hitting the ball solidly and getting excellent hang time on his punts.
“I liked him coming out of the college draft,” Kotwica said. “He’s done a really nice job for us. He does a good job of getting the ball off. He’s not the biggest guy, but he’s got a very quick leg. He’s done a good job of pooch punting the ball. I’m excited about what’s in store for him.”
Hofrichter, who wears No. 4, is 5-foot-10 and 196 pounds. He probably won’t tackle as hard as Bosher did, but they didn’t draft him for his tackling.
The Falcons liked how fast Hofrichter gets his punts off, which helps the punt-protection unit. Bosher had one punt blocked in 2019. He had nine punts blocked over his career, dating to 2011.
Hofrichter’s high punts helped to limit the opposition’s return yards.
“This isn’t a guy that’s going to drive the ball down the field often and out-punt his coverage,” Kotwica said. “I think the number was like 18 or 19 return yards his last year at Syracuse. That was something that caught our eye. He’s done an excellent of not only delivering the ball in the field, but in the pooch-punting scenarios where he’s downing the opponent at the 10- or 15-yard line.”
In the fourth scrimmage, Hofrichter’s hang-times ranged from 4.98 seconds to 4.34 seconds in warm-ups.
“His ability to the hit the ball with hang time is one of the things that we like about him,” Kotwica said. “When you talk about distance-to-hang-time ratios, you just get into a bind there. … A lot of times the crowd likes the long 60-yard punt, but it wouldn’t hit the roof in this building. That makes it very stressful on your cover assets to get down there and make that play.”
Shorter distance, but longer hang times help the coverage units.
“He’s done an excellent job of hitting the ball and having that hang time-to-distance ratio, where the the ball is not going maybe 60 yards with four seconds of hang time," Kotwica said, "but it’s 45 yards with 4.5, 4.6 hang time. That’s kind of the balance that you’re looking for.”
Brandon Powell, who played in six games with Detroit in 2018, has two punt returns and two kickoff returns in the NFL.
At Florida from 2014-17, Powell returned 33 kickoffs for 671 yards (20.3 yards per return) and no touchdowns. He returned 17 punts for 61 yards (3.6 yards per return) and no touchdowns.
“He’s looked as good as I’ve seen him catching the football and being decisive,” Kotwica said.
Powell is listed as the No. 1 punt returner, and wide receiver Olamide Zaccheaus is listed as the No. 1 kickoff returner, but Kotwica wasn’t so sure about the kickoff returner.
Powell, Zaccheaus and Ito Smith were back catching kickoffs at practice Thursday.
“We’ll see what happens on Sunday,” Kotwica said. “There are a couple of options there. B.P. has done it. He’s got experience there. The other one that has done it for us is Ito. Ito’s champing at the bit quite frankly. He’s always (saying), ‘Coach, get me back there.’ So, we’ve got some options there. OZ, BP and Ito are again three good options to have back there.”
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